


A Charmed Regeneration

by Marcus_S_Lazarus



Category: Charmed (TV 1998), Doctor Who
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Crossover, F/M, Regeneration (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 22,700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23545357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marcus_S_Lazarus/pseuds/Marcus_S_Lazarus
Summary: When Phoebe's latest vision reveals the destruction of the world at the turn of the Millennium, the Charmed Ones must help a strange amnesic learn his true identity before the entire Earth pays the price.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	1. The Life, Death, and Life of the Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> Just to clarify, this is a crossover between "Doctor Who" and "Charmed" looking at how things might have gone if the Charmed Ones had become involved in the events of the Seventh Doctor's regeneration and the beginning of the Eighth Doctor's life (The Seventh Doctor regenerated after making a forced landing in San Francisco on December 30th 1999 due to the actions of the Master causing the TARDIS to crash-land in an alley, the Doctor subsequently being shot by gang members and taken to hospital only to be killed due to the doctors' inexperience with his physiology). Essential information about events from the Doctor's perspective leading up to his regeneration will be included in this chapter, with the Charmed Ones becoming involved in the next one; I hope it proves interesting.
> 
> For the Charmed Ones, this takes place between the Season Two episodes "P3 H2O" and "Ms. Hellfire"- the events depicted here would take place around that time frame based on air dates-, so Piper's currently dating Dan while Leo's trying to maintain a distance, Prue's alive and acquainted with (But not yet officially dating) Jack, and Phoebe's single. For the Doctor, this takes place during an alternate take on the 1996 TV movie, so as this story begins the Doctor's currently in his seventh incarnation and travelling alone, taking the Master's remains back to Gallifrey after his execution on Skaro (Obviously _before_ the Time War)

_It was on the planet Skaro that my old enemy, the Master, was finally put on trial. They say he listened calmly, as his list of evil crimes was read, and sentence passed. Then he made his last- and I thought, somewhat curious- request. He demanded that I, the Doctor, a rival Time Lord, should take his remains back to our home planet, Gallifrey._

_It was a request they should never have granted_.

Staring silently at the box containing the small urn of ashes that were all that remained of the man he'd once considered his closest friend, the Doctor couldn't help but ponder the irony of the situation; after all the chaos his old friend had caused throughout time and space, the ones responsible for his execution were the Daleks, and even that had been more of a show trial than anything else.

Getting off Skaro after acquiring the remains hadn't been easy, of course, but he'd pulled it off anyway; the personal force field he'd used to deflect Dalek fire might have shorted out after a few hits, but it had been enough to let him gain those crucial few feet to get into the TARDIS before the Daleks caught up with him, allowing him to comfortably sit out their attempts to fire at his ship while he set the coordinates for Gallifrey before moving the Master's remains to the container he'd laid out earlier.

"There," he said reflectively to himself, sealing the container with the sonic screwdriver, "that should do it."

It might be a relatively pointless precaution, of course- no Time Lord in existence could come back from what the Daleks had done to the Master at the end, and that was before you factored in the detail that he'd already wasted all of his regenerations-, but after all of the Master's earlier efforts to claim immortality, there was no harm in going that little extra mile, as far as he was concerned.

With the coordinates now set and the journey back to Gallifrey pre-programmed in, there was nothing more for the Doctor to do than sit down in the comfortable armchair that he'd added to the TARDIS console room during his recent reconfiguration of it- he might have been feeling unnecessarily nostalgic when he programmed the console room to its current setting to give it the appearance of a private library, complete with multiple clocks, various filled bookshelves, and a reading-chair, but that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy the comfort of the new additions-, listening to a few records and getting in a good read of a rather amusing book ( _The Time Machine_ might have been fundamentally wrong in the particulars of how it worked but Herbert had really had some good ideas)...

The skipping record player briefly distracted his attention, of course, but that was easy enough to sort out; having given the gramophone just the slight tweak necessary to get everything back to normal, the Doctor returned his attention to his reading, even allowing himself a quick jelly baby as he continued to peruse the novel. It was really far too rarely that he had the opportunity to just relax like this; maybe he should consider putting the TARDIS in 'hover mode' more often if it was the only way he could be certain of relaxation...

The slight shaking in his teacup, however, left a nagging concern in his mind that he already knew he wouldn't be able to shake off that easily. It might be a minor detail, he knew, but after he'd spent so long in his life preparing plans and traps for his enemies ranging from the large to the small, he knew better than to underestimate the importance of anything that happened around him...

What happened next was something he wasn't sure he'd ever fully understand- his best guess later on was a slight temporal imbalance formed by the sudden 'restoration' of a Time Lord 'mind' where nothing had been before shifting the psychic balance in the TARDIS just enough to knock the cup without making an impression he could detect himself-; even as he watched it, the teacup seemed to leap off the table he'd placed it on, crashing to the floor and shattering into pieces. He had just leaned over to examine it more closely in case there was some obvious sign on the cup that he'd missed when sparks suddenly burst from the TARDIS console, prompting him to put down the book he'd been reading and hurry over to the console, quickly checking the controls and activating the break as sparks burst all around him; if the TARDIS was in this kind of trouble, the last thing he wanted was to continue flying...

As the Time Rotor came to a halt in front of him, he pulled down the new monitor- the screen might be smaller than the old one, but it was more immediately accessible than the old method of flicking switches-, the Doctor glanced at the display, only for his worst fears to be confirmed.

**CRITICAL TIMING MALFUNCTION**

**INSTIGATE AUTOMATIC EMERGENCY LANDING**

"Oh no..." he muttered, taking one last check to make sure that the dematerialisation circuits still functioned properly- the TARDIS might have suffered damage to its temporal location circuits, but everything else seemed fine- before he hurried off to where he'd left the casket, praying that he was simply becoming paranoid in his middle-age- this hadn't exactly been his most relaxing life; it was only natural he'd start to suffer from some degree of stress at this time- even as he knew that there wasn't another explanation; anything powerful enough to attack the TARDIS from the outside wouldn't have resorted to such basic measures...

As soon as his eyes fell on the casket, the Doctor's worst fears were confirmed; the small metal box had broken practically in half and there was a thin trail of slime running from the crack.

He might not know _how_ the Master had accomplished this last trick- most likely some last-ditch experiment of his in his endless quest to cheat death-, but he could be certain of one thing; whatever the Master had planned, it couldn't be good.

With the damage to the timing mechanism of the TARDIS, he couldn't even take off without risking arriving somewhere dangerous. The spatial systems might prevent him from arriving somewhere that was immediately dangerous like an active volcano or the bottom of the ocean, but that wouldn't help him if, for example, he landed at Hiroshima just before the bomb fell; there would be no _immediate_ danger to him, but there would be trouble in the immediate future.

Glancing at the spatial coordinates, the Doctor noted that at least things could be worse, according to the ship's coordinates, he had apparently landed in an alleyway somewhere in San Francisco, while a temporary glance at the astronomy scanner seemed to put his temporal position somewhere towards the end of the twentieth century based on the location of the planets in relation to the rest of the universe...

There was nothing else for it; he'd have to go outside, find something that he could use to repair the timing mechanism of the ship, and hope that the ship's security systems would be enough to keep the Master contained inside- assuming that he was actually _aware_ at this point rather than operating on instinct in whatever form he was in right now- long enough for him to find something that he could use to repair the ship.

_On the bright side_ , he reflected as he turned around and walked out of the door, _if the timing's accurate, I should be able to find what I'm looking for soon enough; all I need is a decent_ -

The sound of four bullets firing cut off his train of thought even before the bullets struck him, leaving him falling to the ground as his left leg was suddenly rendered useless by the impact of two of the bullets in the aforementioned limb; the wounds themselves weren't too serious, but the shock of being shot, combined with his weakened telepathic link to the TARDIS, was enough to knock him to the ground.

He was only vaguely aware of the sound of a car driving away with a loud screech- most likely whoever had shot him fleeing the scene of the crime-, his eyes straining for focus before he saw someone crouching uncertainly over him; a young Asian-looking boy dressed in a dark jacket with slightly curled hair.

"Timing malfunction..." he muttered, trying to get the words out even as he knew he wouldn't be able to do so; his body was already automatically shutting down to prepare for the usual healing coma to recover from the damage...

Then his eyes fell on the faint trail of slime slithering through the TARDIS keyhole- evidently the Master was still aware enough in this state to know that remaining where he was would accomplish nothing-, and a cold feeling of dread spread over him.

_No_...

"Stop it!" he yelled, grabbing for the jacket of the young man above him, desperately indicating the slime that was the Master. "Stop... it..."

Then his vision blurred and he fell back onto the ground, blackness settling over his mind as his body shut down to begin the healing process.

* * *

When the Doctor regained consciousness, he only needed a moment to know that something had changed; for one thing, he found it unlikely that anything in an alleyway would be played Puccini's _Madame Butterfly_ in that manner...  
  
Then he opened his eyes, saw a group of surgeons standing over him, and knew that things were about to get worse before they got better; no matter how well-meaning they were, anyone even _attempting_ to operate on him without access to UNIT medical files wouldn't have the slightest clue what to do to him without killing him...  
  
"What you're about to do, _stop_ ," he said simply, grabbing the wrist of a nearby surgeon holding a scalpel and staring intently at her.  
  
"Mr Smith, you'll be all right-" the surgeon began; his ears felt somewhat clogged-up, as though whatever was happening to him had hampered his body's ability to process external stimuli, but he could still hear enough of what was being said to get the basic picture of what was happening to him.  
  
"No," the Doctor protested, trying to fight through whatever drugs he'd been given before he arrived in this situation, "I am not human; I am not like you-"  
  
"Nobody is like you, Mr Smith-" the surgeon continued.  
  
"Please," the Doctor insisted, his mind latching back onto the last thoughts he'd had before he sustained the damage that had led him here, "I need a beryllium atomic clock; this is 1999, isn't it?"  
  
"We can't wait any longer, Grace," another surgeon said from just out of his line of sigh, an anaesthtetist mask being placed over the Doctor's face.  
  
"No!" the Doctor yelled, reaching up and pulling the surgeon's mask down- revealing a narrow face with lines around her mouth that could have been caused by smiling or frowning- as he tried to pull the mask off with his other hand. "I'm not human, I'm not human!"  
  
"Try not to speak, Mr Smith," the woman said, as the Doctor was held back onto the bed, his mind racing too quickly for him to hear the rest of her words as he tried to place what felt so familiar about this situation... something he'd encountered before... something that he'd been _shown_ about this latest dilemma...  
  
Then it hit him.  
  
During that affair with Benny's father attempting to start a nuclear war as a result of the Daleks' manipulations, he'd encountered the 'ghost' of a young woman who'd become unstuck in time, who'd shown him his next regeneration while trying to break him; dying, surrounded by well-meaning strangers who couldn't help him...  
  
Then the Doctor's memory of the events immediately before this situation returned to him, and he sat upwards in shock.  
  
" _Timing malfunction_!" he yelled in shock, trying to focus his mind through the drugs that were now in his system and the residual shock caused by the bullets; if he could just concentrate long enough to metabolise them out of his system...  
  
"The Master!" he continued, desperately trying to make someone understand as he was 'forced' back onto the bed. "He's out there! He's... he's..."  
  
His mind blurred again as he was gently 'forced' back onto the bed, his vision and thoughts clouded over as the anaesthetic took hold, his body too weakened to properly respond to what was happening to him no matter how hard he tried to fight his way back to consciousness...  
  
"I've got to _stop_...!" he muttered briefly through the mask, before the anaesthetic they'd given him filled his system and rendered him unconscious.  
  
As he surrendered to blacked, the Doctor could only hope that whatever was about to happen to him wouldn't be _too_ fatal...

* * *

As he opened his eyes, already slightly shivering from the cold that his body had registered before his mind could do the same, the temperature was the first thing he noticed about his surroundings.  
  
The second thing was that he had no idea where he was.  
  
This was followed by the rather disturbing revelation that he didn't even know who _he_ was, or why he was in the place that he was currently inside.  
  
What had happened to him?  
  
Why was he only wearing this sheet?  
  
Who was he?  
  
And why was it so cold in here?


	2. Envisioning the End

As she walked down the streets of San Francisco's Chinatown, Phoebe had to admit that she was really looking forward to a quiet New Year's Eve tonight.

It might have been a bit of an odd thing to wish for- particularly on the eve of what was almost destined to be the biggest party in the hundred or so years-, but given that she and her sisters had spent most of that time preparing for the worst-case-scenario and worrying about the possibility of discovering some freaky prophecy of destruction about that time of year, it was only natural for her to hope for something quiet, particularly since it was just going to be the three of them.

With Dan taking Jenny back across the country to spend New Year's with her parents- Piper hadn't felt that this was the right time to meet the rest of Dan's family, particularly on such a monumental occasion as the turn of the millennium; it created too many preconceptions about the relationship that Piper didn't feel ready for at this point-, the three sisters were intending to have their own private New Year's Eve party at home before heading over to P3 to celebrate the new millennium in as much style as possible.

Right now, however, Phoebe's only real concern was getting some food for their immediate party at home; anything else they had to deal with at this point could wait. She was currently picking up a few things from Chinatown for a few dishes Piper had acquired from the ghost of one of their first innocents- definitely one of their most interesting, in Phoebe's opinion-, and was just walking past an alleyway near a vegetable stall she'd just visited when someone hurried past her, forcing her into the wall of the building on the right-

_A blue box appearing out of thin air in an alleyway-  
_ _A man leaving the box and getting shot-  
_ _The man on an operating table in a hospital, flat lines on the heart monitor-  
_ _Lightning flashing in what looked like a morgue as the man lay on the bed, his features changing-  
_ _A new man- no, he was the_ same _man after he had finished changing; he still had the 'John Doe' tag on his toe and was wrapped in a sheet- leaving the morgue, dressing himself in a Victorian-esque coat-  
_ _The new man facing a man in a leather coat and sunglasses, the other seemingly 'emitting' evil from every pore of his body-  
_ _The two men fighting near what looked like a giant stone eye, the man in leather now dressed in long red-and-black robes-  
_ _Earth- the actual_ planet _\- seen from orbit, everything being seemingly_ pulled _towards San Francisco like it had become an elaborate plug and the world was the water in the 'bath'-  
_ _The world vanishing as the man in the robe laughed above the stone eye, the velvet-clad man lying on the ground behind him, clocks chiming midnight over the laughter as Earth ceased to exist-_

Even as the vision ended, Phoebe couldn't keep herself from shaking at what she'd just experienced.

That had easily been the most intensely _detailed_ vision of her life...

And the _scale_ of what she'd seen at the end...

Running down the alleyway she'd just hit the edge of- it was the only explanation she could think of to explain why she'd had that vision _now_ -, Phoebe was almost disappointed when she saw the blue box that she'd seen in her vision standing at the end of a side-alley, surrounded by crime scene tape; if that much was real, it seemed safe to say that what was coming up would have to take priority over any Millennium New Year's Eve celebrations.

_Damnit_... Phoebe reflected in frustration. _So much for any hopes that the Millennium Bug rumours were the_ least _of our worries_...

New Year's dinner plans were definitely going to have to wait; if something was going to happen that could cause _that_ kind of damage, she and her sisters _really_ needed to take action fast...

* * *

Looking up as her youngest sister entered the manor's kitchen, Piper supposed she shouldn't have been too surprised at the clearly anxious look on her face; given how few bags Phoebe was carrying and how long it had been since she'd left to do the shopping originally, it seemed safe to say that something Charmed-related had come up.  
  
"What's up?" she asked, crossing her fingers in the hope that she might be wrong. "Were the shops out of something, or is it a vision?"  
  
"Vision; quite possibly my biggest one yet," Phoebe replied, slightly breathless as she spoke; evidently a lot of the time that she hadn't been using other forms of transportation had been spent running to get back to the manor. "We need to get to Walker General Hospital fast; somebody there needs our help-"  
  
"Hold on; someone needs _our_ help at a hospital?" Prue asked as she entered the room, looking uncertainly between Piper and Phoebe with a renewed expression of discomfort. "It's just that... well, healing isn't really-"  
  
"He doesn't need us to _heal_ him," Phoebe said, realising even as she spoke that what she had to say was going to sound strange. "He... well, I think he _died_ last night-"  
  
"Oh God, _another_ ghost?" Piper asked, staring upwards in frustration. "Just for once-"  
  
"And I'm _pretty_ sure that he came back to life in a different body," Phoebe finished, enjoying the momentarily stunned expression on Piper and Prue's faces at that last statement.  
  
"Well," Prue said at last, exchanging a brief glance with Piper before she shrugged uncertainly, "that's... different... but is it really-?"  
  
"And if we don't help him out, something's going to happen that will destroy the planet," Phoebe added.  
  
"Hold on; the _planet_?" Piper interjected, waving an objecting hand at Phoebe. "How does _that_ work?"  
  
"I don't _know_ ; I'm more worried about _getting_ to the guy right now to help him stop it before starting to worry about what we're trying to _stop_!" Phoebe replied, indicating the door with an impatient wave of her hand. "Look, we're talking about the fate of the _planet_ here; are you _really_ going to just... _wait_ and see if I'm right?"  
  
Prue could only sigh at that.  
  
"Point..." she admitted in frustration, before she glanced at her watch with a brief sigh before looking back at Piper and Phoebe. "Well, we'd better get moving; maybe we can sort this out _before_ we get too close to midnight to actually accomplish anything."  
  
"Just let me get _one_ thing from upstairs..." Phoebe said as she ran up the stairs towards the attic, prompting a briefly frustrated glance between Prue and Piper even as they were fairly certain that they knew what Phoebe was after.

* * *

As soon as they'd entered the hospital check-in area, Phoebe's eyes instantly fell on the man she'd seen in her vision. He was currently sitting in a chair in the waiting room, dressed in a velvet frock coat of indeterminate colour- it primarily appeared to be green, but it somehow could also be seen as being brown, or even varying shades of blue or purple, depending on how the light hit it-, a waistcoat and a cravat in a silverish colour over a white shirt, and a pair of cream-coloured trousers, although his feet were surprisingly bare.  
  
"Is that him?" Piper asked, looking slightly uncertainly over at Phoebe.  
  
"Yeah, that's the guy," Phoebe confirmed with a nod, her eyes flicking around the hospital before she fell on a red-haired woman in a white medical coat talking with a woman at the reception desk.  
  
"...get SFPD on this?" the woman was saying impatiently. "Some creep's made off with the John Doe that died last night."  
  
"Ew, body snatchers..." the receptionist replied, shuddering slightly at the implications- not that Phoebe could blame her; if she hadn't had a good idea of what incident the doctor was referring to (Their current innocent's unexpected 'resurrection') she'd find the vanishing body disturbing too- before an older man in a suit and glasses walked over.  
  
"Don't call the police just yet, Curtis," he said, before he turned to address the red-haired woman. "Grace, can you give me some time?"  
  
"Time..." the man muttered, standing upwards to stare in confusion between the now-vanishing woman and the clock on the wall as the older man led the woman towards an office.  
  
"Sounds like our guy is attracting a _bit_ too much attention..." Piper said, looking anxiously over at her sisters. "Any way we can deal with that?"  
  
"No worries," Phoebe replied, pulling out a bag and smiling slightly at her sisters. "I grabbed some of Sam's powder before we left; I'll use this to take care of anything those doctors remember about the guy while you two get him out of here, OK?"  
  
Before either of them could say anything about Phoebe's plan, their youngest sister turned and ran in the direction that the doctors had walked earlier, leaving them looking at the man in the velvet coat as he stared at the clock, only to turn to look at them as Prue walked over to place a hand on his arm.  
  
"Hi," Prue said, smiling at the man in what she hoped was a reassuring manner; their current lack of knowledge about this guy didn't exactly help inspire comfort, but if he was involved in saving the world she'd assume the best for the moment. "I'm Prue Halliwell, and this is my sister Piper; we're here to-"  
  
"Piper?" the man muttered, looking at her sister uncertainly as Piper moved around to more directly face the other man, squinting slightly at the younger woman as though trying to recognise her; Prue noted with surprise that he actually had a slightly English accent. "I knew a Piper... she saved a friend of mine... in the Lucifer system..."  
  
"Well, I've never been there, so I'm not _that_ Piper, but trust me; we're here to help you," Piper said, smiling at the man in an awkwardly reassuring manner as she reached out to place an uncertain hand on his arm, the man jolting slightly at the unexpected contact before he seemed to relax as he looked at her.  
  
"You... you know me?" he asked, a slightly hesitant smile on his face.  
  
"We... know _of_ you," Prue said, deciding it was best to avoid making this discussion too complicated as she guided the man towards the door; if his apparent amnesia was genuine- and she had no reason to believe that he was faking it-, that left them with more questions that they needed to answer, so it would be best to get started on finding those answers as soon as possible. "Look, if you'll come with us, we think we can help you work out what happened to you..."  
  
For a moment, the man simply stared silently at them in a contemplative manner as they walked towards the elevator, before he smiled briefly at them.  
  
"Well... it's more than I have right now," the man replied as they entered the elevator and began to descend towards the car park, rubbing the lower left side of his chest uncomfortably. "Besides, it's probably best I get out of here; I think I could use- ARGH!" he yelled, dropping to his knees as he clutched at his chest, wincing in pain as the doors opened onto the car park.  
  
"What the-?" Piper asked, staring at him in confusion as the man pulled his cravat apart and undid the top few buttons of his shirt as he staggered into the car park, collapsing against a nearby car as he pulled his shirt apart to reveal what looked like a small wire sticking out of his chest a couple of inches below the left nipple.  
  
"Oh my God..." Prue whispered, eyes widening in shock as the man pulled the wire out, panting and shaking slightly as the object was removed from his body, revealing a slightly rounder metal tip with a glass circular on its end that even Prue's limited medical knowledge could identify as a camera of some sort.  
  
It might not prove Phoebe's claims that this man had come back from the dead in a new body, but it definitely confirmed that there was more going on here than the obvious problems of the guy not knowing who he was.  
  
"Please..." the man said, staring slightly shakily between them and the wire in his hand. "I have _two hearts_... you have to get me out of here before they kill me again... help me..."  
  
 _Two hearts_? Prue thought, even as she and Piper took the man's arms and guided him towards their car, taking care to stay out of sight of anyone who might be leaving the hospital; the strange man they'd come here to help would have attracted attention just because of his clothes, never mind the wire he'd just pulled out of himself.  
  
She didn't know what this man was, but the more time she spent with him the more it became clear that he wasn't human; the question remained what he actually was _instead_...

* * *

For a moment as Phoebe approached the door she'd seen the two doctors walking towards earlier- apparently the staffroom, she noted; at least that meant there might not be too many people in there, given how busy hospitals stereotypically were at this time of year-, she hesitated outside the door, but the sound and scent of something burning prompted her to slowly open the door a crack and glance inside the room, allowing her to catch a limited but effective glimpse of the man dropping something that looked like an X-ray into a small bin after lighting it on fire, the woman looking at him in evident shock.  
  
"Am I having a bad dream here?" the woman asked desperately. "I lose a patient, and then I lose his body, and you have just destroyed the only proof that-"  
  
"That you were careless?" the other doctor asked, glancing back at her from his current position near a window.  
  
" _No_!" the woman yelled back at him, moving to stand more directly in front of him. "That I had no way of knowing-!"  
  
" _Stop_!" the other doctor said, looking pointedly at Grace as he held up one hand to stop her mid-sentence. "A man _died_ last night because you lost your way-"  
  
"You bet I did!" the woman countered. "You _saw_ the X-ray; the guy had _two hearts_ -!"  
  
"And now," the doctor continued, as calmly as though the woman hadn't interrupted in the first place, "without a body, or without records, no one need know he was even here."  
  
Despite her natural anger at the man's actions- here he was, sweeping a man's _death_ (Even if she was fairly certain that the man they were discussing was the man in her vision) under the table simply to protect his own reputation-, Phoebe couldn't help but feel slightly grateful for it in this instance; at least it meant it would be fairly easy for her to do what she'd come here to do.  
  
Quickly stepping through the door, Phoebe pulled out a handful of Sam's powder before the two people before her could do more than turn to look at her in confusion and blew it in their faces.  
  
"OK," Phoebe said, looking between the two as she spoke quickly, "you'll finish destroying those records you were just talking about, and then you'll both forget _all_ about the guy who died here last night and vanished; as far as you and the rest of the world's concerned, he was never even here in the first place."  
  
With that, she turned around and walked out of the staffroom, leaving the two doctors to stare slightly dazedly after her before they began to respond to her 'instructions'.  
  
 _One problem down_ , Phoebe reflected with a slight smile, the smile subsequently fading as her vision flashed across her memory once again.  
  
 _God only knows_ what _we've got let to tackle now_...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those interested to know, the woman who was arguing about the destruction of the Doctor's records was Grace Holloway, the heart surgeon who was unintentionally responsible for the Seventh Doctor's death; in the original course of events, she went on to help the Eighth Doctor regain his memory and stop the Master's plot, but since that obviously won't be happening here with the Halliwells' involvement I thought it best to settle what happened to her now and then get back to the main plot.


	3. Time's Champion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who've seen the TV movie, I won't be including the scenes with the Master in the TARDIS- for those who haven't seen it, the Master managed to essentially 'hi-jack' the body of a paramedic to use as a temporary host and tricked Chang Lee (The guy who took the Doctor to the hospital and subsequently stole his possessions) into thinking that the Doctor was the villain to help him take the Doctor's body by gaining access to the TARDIS-; they're relatively unchanged and it adds an additional element of mystery to the plot if we don't know what he's _specifically_ up to right now, particularly since it'll mostly be explained when we catch up to their role in events

"So... you really don't remember _anything_ about yourself?" Prue asked as the Halliwells led their strange new Innocent into the manor, the man looking around himself with an approving smile.

"No... no, I don't," the man replied, looking slightly dazed for a moment as he studied the mansion. "I have a _feeling_ I have a house like this- lovely place, by the way; you really do feel that somebody _lives_ here-, but I haven't been there for a while... actually, I don't even live there; I just keep it for when I..."

"When you what?" Phoebe asked, looking anxiously at the strange man; she was trying not to pressure him too much in case she triggered some kind of mental breakdown (She was fairly sure that amnesics couldn't be given too much information too fast in case it triggered a relapse or something like that), but they were rapidly running out of time to figure out what this guy had to do with the events she'd seen in her vision.

"I don't know..." the man muttered, reaching up to feel his chest as he continued to stare around himself, his eyes fixing reflectively on the grandfather clock. "Time..."

"Time?" Piper repeated, waving a prompting hand at him to draw his attention back. "What about time?"

"Time is... is..." the man began, before he sighed and shook his head. "I don't know, it's all so confusing... it's been a rough day..."

"Yeah, about that; are you _sure_ you're all right?" Phoebe asked, reaching over to take his wrist and placing her fingers against his pulse. "I mean, you _did_ pull..."

Her voice trailed off as she stared at the wrist she now held in her hand, her eyes widening incredulously as she shifted her fingers slightly. "Oh my God..."

"What?" Prue asked, looking uncertainly at her sister. "Is something-?"

"Oh my God..." Phoebe repeated, shifting her hands to place them on both sides of their visitor's chest, staring incredulously at her hands for a moment before looking up at the man's face. "You were right... you've got _two hearts_..."

"Of course I do," the man replied with a casual smile. "I already told you-"

"Look, can we get back to the part where you have _two hearts_?" Piper said, raising her hands and waving them in frustration at the stranger. "Just... who _are_ you?"

"I was dead too long this time," the man said, his tone suddenly solemn as the smile faded, apologetically looking around at the small group in front of him. "The anaesthetic almost completely destroyed the regenerative process-"

"The what?" Prue asked, looking uncertainly at him.

"Oh, I have thirteen lives; didn't I mention that?" the man asked, smiling brightly at her before his expression shifted into confusion. "How did I know that...?"

" _Thirteen lives_?" Phoebe said, staring at their guest with renewed incredulity. "OK, seriously, what _are_ you? Some weird kind of demon, a freaky angel-?"

"Demon?" the man said, looking over at her curiously. "What are you talking about; demons don't exist..."

He suddenly paused as something occurred to him. "Well, actually, there was the Destroyer and the Jarakabeth and... what were those other two?"

He shook his head and turned back to look at the sisters before they could ask him for clarification. "Never mind, it's not important; what matters right now is that what you call 'demons' aren't actually demonic, but merely sub-dimensional inhabitants intruding on this dimension in varying ways-"

"Hold on, now you're saying demons aren't _real_?" Piper cut in, staring at this increasingly strange man before her. "I don't know what you _think_ you know about them, but trust me, they're real; we've _fought_ them-"

"Oh, I'm not denying they exist; I'm just saying they're not as supernatural as you think they are," the man said, smiling reassuringly at them before he glanced downwards. "Can you get me some shoes?"

"Shoes?" Prue asked, confused at the sudden change in topic.

"Shoes," the man repeated, indicating his bare feet and wiggling his toes slightly (Prue tried not to think too much about the fact that he actually had a 'John Doe' tag on the big toe of his right foot; this situation was already becoming _ridiculously_ bizarre). "My toes are getting cold."

"Right..." Phoebe said, nodding slightly as she looked at her sisters. "Well... look, if you could just... wait here, we'll... get back to you?"

"Of course," the man replied, nodding at her with a brief smile as he turned around to sit down on the couch, casually picking up a book that had been left on it earlier and beginning to nonchalantly flick through it as the sisters headed up towards the attic. None of them were entirely certain about the wisdom of leaving someone alone after they'd just met him a couple of hours ago, but with the vision in mind- coupled with the fact that the only thing he could actually _steal_ if he was a threat was the Book of Shadows, which they'd be keeping an eye on anyway-, it was probably easier leaving him there while they talked upstairs...

* * *

"OK, seriously, who _is_ this guy?" Piper asked as they entered the attic, looking in confusion between her sisters. "I mean, what was all that about magic _not_ being magic?"

"I don't know..." Phoebe muttered, even as she walked over to stand behind the Book of Shadows, opening it and flicking through the pages before her.

"What?" Prue asked, looking curiously at her sister.

"It's just... I think I remember reading something about one of the demons that guy mentioned..." Phoebe replied, her eyes narrowing contemplatively as she studied the pages in front of her before she stopped. "Here it is; according to the Book, the Destroyer was a powerful demon capable of- surprise- destroying the world, traditionally bound and restrained by silver chains to limit its powers, that was summoned here a couple of years ago by..."

Phoebe could only blink as she stared at the information in the Book before she looked up at her sisters and finished her sentence. "It was summoned by... Morgraine Le Fay... to help her get... Excalibur."

For a moment Prue thought about laughing at Phoebe's joke, but the utter lack of a smile on her face made it clear that she wasn't joking.

"You're... you're serious?" she said, staring sceptically at her sister. "Morgraine Le Fay? As in _King Arthur's_ Morgraine Le Fay?"

"Bingo," Phoebe replied, still intently studying the entry before her. "From what Grams wrote here, she'd heard from a few 'contact'- she doesn't say who- that the Destroyer was summoned to this world when Morgraine was trying to find Excalibur, but it was shot with a silver bullet by a soldier who was working with someone identified here as 'Time's Champion'."

"'Time's Champion'?" Piper asked. "And... that is...?"

"No idea; that's all it says here," Phoebe said with a nod. "There's a few other references to someone by that name in the Book at a few other interesting moments in history; a few of our ancestors noted reports of 'Time's Champion' helping Shakespeare stop a group of witches who were trying to trick him into preparing a spell that would release them from their prison, fighting a god- or maybe just a demon with a high power level; they're not specific about what it actually was- identified only as 'Mandragora' in Italy in the fifteenth century and China in the 1860s, something about a Chinese God called Weng-Chiang looking for something in London in 1889..."

She trailed off as she stared at the words on the page before her, shaking her head as though trying to clear it as she stared at them again.

"What?" Prue asked.

"It says that..." Phoebe began, swallowing slightly before she looked back at her sisters. "It says that Time's Champion was involved in stopping Jack the Ripper unleash pure darkness on the world in 1888."

Prue had always thought it ridiculous when she'd seen it done in films, but right now she wished that she'd been drinking something so that she could spit it out.

"Jack the Ripper?" she repeated, shaking her head incredulously as she stared at Phoebe (She'd think more about the implications of the Ripper having been a demon of some sort later). "You're saying that _one man_ met William Shakespeare _and_ Jack the Ripper?"

"If he _is_ a man; nobody who wrote anything about him here seems to be that specific on what he is or how he does this," Phoebe answered, turning the Book for a few more pages before she smiled. "Ah, here we..."

"What's the problem _now_?" Prue asked, looking impatiently at her youngest sister as she trailed off mid-sentence while scanning the page before her.

"Well, I found the actual _entry_ on this 'Champion' guy; it just doesn't really _do_ much for us as far as answering any questions goes," Phoebe explained. "Based on what it says about him here, the only constant about this guy- even his _appearance_ doesn't seem to be constant; he's been described as being an old man with white hair or a short guy with dark hair even when they make it clear he's the same man- is that he always shows up with this... blue box..."

For a moment Phoebe's voice trailed off as she stared at the page before her, prompting Prue and Piper to briefly exchange confused glances before Piper finally broke it.

"What?" she asked, looking uncertainly at her sister. "Is there something about the box we should know about?"

"It's just... that vision I had?" Phoebe answered, looking back at her sisters. "It started when I passed an alleyway in Chinatown... with a blue box at the end of the alley."

"A blue box?" Prue repeated, walking around to stand alongside her sister and study the image in the Book, revealing a picture of a rectangular blue box with small windows and what looked like a lantern on its top accompanying the brief information the Book had to offer about 'Time's Champion'. "As in, _that_ blue box?"

"Yeah..." Phoebe said, nodding uncertainly as she turned her attention back to the Book, shaking her head uncertainly.

"Hold on; you're saying that... the guy we've got down _there_... is _Time's Champion_?" Piper asked, indicating the stairs down to the mansion with a wave of her hand. "He doesn't exactly _seem_ like some kind of... wandering hero..."

"I can't think of _anyone_ who'd be at their best in his current state; even if he's not human, I don't think that dying's something that could _ever_ be good for your mental state," Phoebe pointed out, shaking her head reflectively as she studied the words written in front of her. "It's not like it's given us anything useful, anyway; we still don't know what we might be _dealing_ with right now..."

"Except for the fact that, if it involves us helping someone who's stopped a couple of demons that were actually mistaken for gods, it's probably serious," Prue said, finally voicing the thought that none of the Halliwells had wanted to voice even as they knew they'd have to address it eventually.

What could be so serious that it would involve someone who'd actually defeated _gods_ needing their help, and where did that strange box fit into the picture?

Come to that, where was that man in the robes that Phoebe had seen in her vision?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who want to know, the prior adventures referenced in the Book of Shadows include- in the order that they were mentioned- the Seventh Doctor episode "Battlefield", the Tenth Doctor episode "The Shakespeare Code", the Fourth Doctor episode "The Masque of Mandragora", the First Doctor book "The Eleventh Tiger", the Fourth Doctor episode "The Talons of Weng-Chiang", and the Seventh Doctor novel "Matrix"; I was trying to focus on encounters the Doctor has had with aliens using technology and methods that could easily have been mistaken for magic even in the present (Or, in the case of Weng-Chiang, were directly stated as being assumed to be magic).


	4. The Doctor's Revelation

An hour later, research into their strange guest's possible origins in the Book of Shadows having turned up nothing that they could use and the guest himself having been provided with a pair of old shoes that the sisters' father had left behind after moving out, currently experimentally pacing the hall under Prue and Phoebe's watchful eyes while Piper called P3 to inform them of her current delay in getting there for the night's party.

"So... these shoes belonged to your father?" their strange guest asked, looking curiously at them as he paused and studied his feet.

"Yeah, but you can keep them if you want; he moved out after he and Mom ended things," Prue said briefly.

"Oh," the man said, looking sympathetically at her before he looked back at his shoes. "Maybe if I had a bit more of a walk in these they'd fit me better..."

"Good idea; let's take a walk," Phoebe said, hurrying over to take the man's hand and lead him towards the door, shooting her sisters a brief, frustrated glance as she grabbed their coats; evidently her attempt to trigger a vision to learn more about what was going on hadn't worked out.

Quite frankly, if they didn't figure out another way to work out who this guy was and how he was meant to help them, Prue was going to forget all that talk about avoiding overloading amnesiacs with too much information and just see how he reacted to the phrase 'Time's Champion'; at least they'd actually be _getting_ somewhere rather than just floundering around in the dark like this.

 _Four hours to midnight, and we're_ still _no further along than we were when Phoebe told us about the vision_... Prue groaned mentally as she shrugged on her coat.

Quite frankly, so far this latest 'vision quest' had been nothing but one massive series of questions; they didn't even know what the man they were with actually _was_ , never mind how he was meant to help them stop the world from ending...

* * *

"Maybe you're the result of some... weird experiment?" Piper suggested half-heartedly after the small group had been walking along the streets for a while with no success; given his casual dismissal of the mere concept of magic earlier, she doubted that actually suggesting to him that he might be a demon of some sort himself would go down well.  
  
"No, I don't think so," the man replied, chuckling slightly as he walked.  
  
"Well, you said yourself that you don't remember anything about your family-" Prue began.  
  
"No," the man said, holding up one hand as the other went to his forehead. "No no no, wait, wait, wait, wait, I remember I-I-I... I'm with my father- no, he's _like_ a father-, we're lying back in the grass, it's a warm Gallifreyian night-"  
  
"Gallifreyian?" Prue repeated.  
  
" _Gallifrey_!" the man replied, his eyes opening wide with a broad grin. "Yes! That must be where I live! Where is it?"  
  
"Uh... I've never heard of it," Phoebe said, exchanging glances with her sisters long enough to confirm that they were as ignorant of this latest twist as she was. "What do you remember?"  
  
"A..." the man began, pausing for a moment before he stared upwards, his arms wide as though trying to encompass the whole sky as the memory overwhelmed him. "A meteor storm; the sky above us was _dancing_ with lights! Purple, green, brilliant yellow; _yes_!"  
  
"What?" Prue asked, walking closer to him at that last eager yell.  
  
"These shoes!" the man said, grinning broadly at her as he eagerly stamped his feet rapidly on the ground. "They fit _perfectly_!"  
  
As the man ran off down another street, eagerly exploring his new shoes, the sisters could only exchange frustrated glances with each other, even as Prue couldn't help but allow a slight smile to spread across her face; there _was_ something kind of infectious about this guy's enthusiasm...  
  
"Hey, wait!" she yelled as she hurried after the man, prompting him to turn around and look back at her with a curious smile. "I was just wondering... what did you mean by what you said earlier, about... well..."  
  
"Oh, you mean what I said about demons not being real?" the man finished for her, smiling reassuringly at her. "Exactly what I said; they're not exactly human, but that doesn't mean they're _magic_ , it's simply a very strange kind of science-"  
  
"'Science'?" Phoebe repeated, looking sceptically at their 'guest'. "Look, I get that you probably think you know what you're talking about somewhere in there even if you don't remember where you got all this from, but we've seen a _lot_ of stuff that can't be explained by science-"  
  
"Oh, you'd be impressed at what science can accomplish without any supernatural explanation being required," the man replied with a nonchalant grin. "Evidently you haven't encountered block transfer computations-"  
  
"What?" Prue asked in confusion; this conversation didn't appear to be connected to the central issue of Phoebe's vision, but it was still rather interesting in its way....  
  
"Block transfer computations," the man said with a casual grin. "A complex method of creating solid objects through mathematical formulae; so long as you possess the necessary information, you can essentially make anything you want so long as you possess the necessary numbers-"  
  
"Hold on; making solid objects... out of _mathematical formulas_?" Phoebe said, holding up a hand to stop the man before he said anything else. "And you say it's _not_ magic?"  
  
"No more than the Eternals, anyway; just because something's more powerful than us doesn't mean it's automatically magic..." the man began, before he suddenly clutched a hand to his head and fell forwards, his body shaking as he leaned against a nearby wall outside a house.  
  
"What?" Prue asked urgently, hurrying forward to place her hands on the man's shoulders. "What is it?"  
  
"Something's happening..." the man replied, gasping for air as he spoke as though whatever had happened to him had forced the air from his lungs, his mouth speaking so quickly none of the Halliwells were sure if he was even aware of what he was saying. "Something's happening... something's happening..."  
  
"OK, OK, we got that; _what's_ happening...?" Prue began, her voice trailing off as the man stopped gasping, a broad grin spreading across his face as he stared at her.  
  
"I _know who I am_!" he said, Prue's relieved smile suddenly being interrupted by the surprise of their strange guest pulling her close to him and giving her a brief but inexperienced kiss that nevertheless sent a sudden thrill through Prue's body that she couldn't even recall Andy inspiring in her...  
  
"I am _the Doctor_!" the man proclaimed as he pulled back, still enthusiastically smiling at her.  
  
"That's... good?" Prue said, uncertain how else to respond to the suddenness of what had just happened (Phoebe's slightly jealous glance at the newly-named 'Doctor' wasn't helping her sort out her thoughts either). "Uh... sorry to break the mood, but-"  
  
" _No_!" the Doctor said, suddenly looking upwards as though something had just occurred to him.  
  
"What?" Prue asked, staring urgently at him as he looked around at the three sisters.  
  
"I saw him!" the Doctor said urgently. "The Master is here!"  
  
"The Master?" Piper repeated, the glance she subsequently exchanged with Prue and Phoebe confirming that all of them were now thinking the same thing; could this 'Master' be the man in robes that Phoebe had seen in her vision? "Who's he?"  
  
"He is planning to take my body..." the Doctor said, his voice low as he stared urgently around at them. "So that he will live and I will die! _NO_!"  
  
Before Prue could even make an offer to help him, he was leaning against the wall once again, staring out at the street before him- fortunately virtually deserted; at this time of night most people were already gathering in their homes, with their friends, or at various clubs, to prepare for the New Year's celebrations- as though staring at some unimaginable horror at the other end of it.  
  
"He has opened the Eye of Harmony!" the Doctor proclaimed, his tone making it clear that, despite the name, this wouldn't be a good thing.  
  
"What's the Eye of Harmony?" Prue asked.  
  
"Wait... wait..." the Doctor said, holding up a hand as something occurred to him, only for him to suddenly shut his eyes and grab her by the shoulder.  
  
"What the-?" the oldest Halliwell began in confusion.  
  
"I'm closing my eyes so he can't see you while I work on reconstructing my psychic barriers- I still haven't managed to rebuild them after what happened last night-, but it may be too late; you and your sisters are potential psychic _amplifiers_ in a situation like this, although the sheer _scale_ of your power might be enough to throw him off-" he began urgently.  
  
"Yeah, can we back up to the part where you tell us what this 'Eye of Harmony' is?" Piper asked, tapping the Doctor impatiently on the shoulder. "I mean, what's so dangerous about it?"  
  
"It's the power source at the heart of the TARDIS," the Doctor replied, his eyes still tightly shut as he turned his head slightly, one hand pressed against his forehead as though trying to force something out of it.  
  
"OK, that's good, and the TARDIS is...?" Phoebe asked promptingly.  
  
"The TARDIS is my ship that carries me through time and space," the Doctor replied automatically. "T.A.R.D.I.S.; it stands for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space."  
  
Despite everything they'd experienced since they'd become witches last year, Prue was only slightly relieved to note that her sisters were just as shocked at the implications of that last statement as she was.  
  
The Doctor had a _time machine_...  
  
"And this... Master?" Prue said, hoping that this question would bring the conversation onto a level that they could more easily understand. "He's... what? A demon?"  
  
"The Master is a rival Time Lord," the Doctor replied; whether he hadn't registered their assumption that the Master was a demon or saw no point in directly arguing about it they didn't know and didn't think now was the time to ask.  
  
"Time Lord?" Prue repeated, a brief glance at Piper and Phoebe all they needed to confirm what they were all thinking; after Andy's death and that whole mess with Tempus, anything involving Time was something that set off more than the occasional warning bells.  
  
"Pure _evil_ ," the Doctor said, shaking his head urgently as he continued to press his palms against his forehead, as though he was trying to grind something out of his brain. "I was bringing his remains home from Skaro where his final incarnation had been exterminated by the Daleks, or _so we thought_!"  
  
"Daleks?" Piper interjected, trying to figure out where the conversation had reached a point where she didn't understand it. "Skaro? What are you-?"  
  
" _But he wasn't dead_!" the Doctor yelled, spinning around and grabbing Prue by the shoulders so that she was facing him, the two almost eye-to-eye if the Doctor's eyes hadn't still been closed. "It's a trap; don't you see, it's a _trap_! He wants me to look into the Eye of Harmony! If I look into the Eye of Harmony in its current state, the artron energy being channelled through it will destroy my soul and allow the Master to take my body-"  
  
"Hold on, back up to the first question; what's this 'Eye of Harmony'?" Phoebe asked, leaning over to try and address the Doctor even as he continued to maintain a tight hold on Prue's shoulders. "How can it destroy your soul; it doesn't _sound_ like-"  
  
"The Eye of Harmony is the black hole that Omega trapped to grant my people the power of time travel centuries ago, and the Master has just opened my TARDIS's connection to it while the TARDIS is _on_ Earth!" the Doctor said, blindly reaching over to grab Phoebe's shoulder as he shifted his gaze- or what would have been his gaze if his eyes were open- between the two. "If the Eye isn't closed in time, the containment fields holding back its power will be drained and this planet will be sucked _through_ it; the artron energy released alone could _seriously_ damage Earth's molecular structure if it's not stopped! Prue, Piper, Phoebe, I need your help to fix the timing mechanism on the TARDIS and close the Eye; I need to find a beryllium atomic clock -!"  
  
"OK, we get you, _we get you_!" Phoebe said, shrugging the Doctor's hand off her shoulder as she looked over at her sisters, all of them trying desperately to take in what they'd just learnt. "Just... just give us a minute, will you?"  
  
Thinking that their strange guest was some kind of higher being who dropped in to help out at crucial moments in history was one thing, but learning that he came from another _planet_...  
  
"A minute..." the Doctor said, nodding in understanding as he released his grip on Prue and Phoebe's shoulders and leant back against the wall, pressing his hands against his forehead as he did so. "Yes... a minute... to recuperate..."  
  
"So... you're an... alien?" Prue said at last, more out of a lack of anything else to say in the silence that followed.  
  
"Yes," the man replied, smiling slightly up at her as he reached out with one hand to give her shoulder a brief, reassuring squeeze even as his other hand continued to press against his forehead. "I'm from the planet Gallifrey in the constellation of Kasterborous, around two hundred and fifty million light-years away; nice enough place, even if the people can be a bit dull..."  
  
"And you... travel in time?" Piper continued, unable to stop a slight smile crossing her face at the thought; evidently the memory of the trip back in time the three of them had taken last year to see their mother and younger selves was currently the main topic in Piper's memory.  
  
"And space," the Doctor replied, reaching over to pat Piper briefly on the shoulder. "That's one of the most interesting parts of it, really; there's always something else to see no matter how long you spend travelling..."  
  
As though that last statement had been a cue, he stood up and smiled around at them. "Well, that's my barriers back up; now all we need to do is find a beryllium clock before midnight-"  
  
"Midnight?" Phoebe cut in. "Why midnight?"  
  
"Because until midnight the TARDIS can draw on the gravitational energy of the Moon to help supplant the power being drained by the containment fields, but once we reach midnight the gravitational forces will be too weak for the TARDIS to contain the Eye and the entire planet will be pulled inside out," the Doctor said as he looked over at them, his expression solemn as he looked at them to make sure they understood what he had just said.  
  
"Gotcha," Piper said, nodding in understanding as she indicated the road that would take them back to the manor. "Let's... go and find that clock."  
  
Glancing over at her sisters, she shared a silent mental prayer that whatever situation they'd found themselves in now would make more sense later; the idea that they were now working with an alien wasn't exactly something they'd been expecting to face even without all that stuff he'd said or implied about magic taken into account...

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Those who've seen the movie may note that I've edited and expanded a bit on the Doctor's explanation of what's happening, but I felt that it had to be done; not only did some plot elements there not make that much sense when you think about them, but there's also the fact that, since the Charmed Ones are more inclined to believe the Doctor's seemingly 'insane' tale than Grace, he's able to go into more detail about the current situation than he did when he was talking to someone who didn't believe a word he was saying and thus had to restrict himself to the essential facts rather than the broad details


	5. The Truth About Magic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where it gets a bit tricky; with the Charmed Ones believing the Doctor's tale, things from this point onwards start to _really_ diverge from what happened originally...
> 
> Hope nobody minds about my explanation for the Charmed Ones' powers here; given that 'magic' doesn't exist in the Doctor's universe, an alternate explanation for what the Halliwells can do was required, and- based on some of the information presented in the 'Dr Who' novels that I've read in the past- this seemed like the best explanation

As far as activities Prue had been expecting to perform on New Year's Eve went, searching the newspapers and other resources for any reference to a beryllium atomic clock- whatever that was- that she and her sisters could use to repair a damaged alien time machine certainly hadn't been very high on the list, no matter how original it might be. The Doctor- a part of her found it strange that she hadn't asked him for anything to go with that title, but the rest of her just seemed to accept it; it was as though he didn't _need_ a name beyond his title- was browsing through the papers just as enthusiastically as them, but the fact that he was also flicking through television channels didn't give the Halliwells an encouraging impression of someone who was fully focused on the job.

"Uh... Doctor?" Piper asked uncertainly, looking over at the strange man as she indicated another article in the paper. "Is this-?"

"No," the Doctor replied, his attention still focused on the television even as he spared a brief glance at the article in question. "And we're running out of time; we've only got about three hours until... until..."

His voice trailed off as he studied the screen before him, shifting the remote to increase the volume as the Halliwells turned to look at the television.

"... _since early this evening_ ," the newsreader was currently saying, " _bay tides have risen to levels that break all records for this time of year. Flood warnings have gone out along the Napa and Russian rivers, and believe it or not, in Hawaii it has even started snowing_."

"Oh boy..." Phoebe muttered, glancing over at the Doctor. "Side-effects of the Eye?"

"... _wondering what this has to do with the millennium_ ," the newsreader continued, even as the Doctor nodded in confirmation at the youngest sister. " _Scientists say that the freak conditions are due to the very slight fluctuations in the Earth's gravitational pull, fluctuations that apparently only happen once every thousand years_."

"I love humans," the Doctor said, grinning over at the Halliwells briefly as the news continued. "Always seeing patterns in things that aren't there."

"OK, nostalgia for our limited human perceptions aside, can we _focus_?" Prue asked, indicating the newspapers spread out before them. "You already said that we're running out time-"

" _Wait_!" the Doctor yelled suddenly, holding up a hand as he stared at the screen, now displaying an image of what looked to the sisters at first glance like a massive hourglass without any sand in an hexagon-topped glass cylinder, although closer observation revealed that there was a clock face in the upper 'dome' of the 'hourglass' and a short, thick 'ribbed' metal pole in the lower dome. A banner was hanging above it, with **THE BEGINNING OF SAN FRANCISCO MEAN TIME** written across it- along with two banners on either side displaying **2000** -, but it was only when the sisters listened to what the newsreaders were saying that the implications of the Doctor's interest became clear.

"...to _be the most accurate atomic clock in the world_ ," the newsreader said with a casual tone, " _and it's right here at the Institute of Technological Advancement and Research in downtown San Francisco_."

"Is that a... beryllium clock?" Prue asked, looking at the Doctor uncertainly.

"It has to be," the Doctor replied with a brief nod as he looked back at Prue. "We _have_ to get there, _now_."

"Uh... you _are_ aware we don't have any-" Piper began.

"Come on, you seriously think we're not going to be able to sneak in to something like _that_?" Phoebe asked, smiling slightly as she indicated the building on the screen before them. "Besides, I've been working on a glamouring spell for something like this; all we need to do is get there and we can make ourselves look like _anything_ we want-"

"Glamour?" the Doctor repeated, looking at her and clicking his fingers slightly as a confused expression crossed his face. "Glamour... glamour... oh, you mean shape-changing?"

"Well, not _literally_ , we'd just _look_ like we'd changed-" Phoebe began.

"Ah, that's all right, then," the Doctor said with a slight smile. "Disguises I can work with- even if I was better with them five bodies ago than I am now-; I'm just not that interested in changing faces again so soon..."

* * *

"So," Prue said a few minutes later, the Halliwells now gathered in the back of Piper's SUV as they drove towards the Institute as quickly as possible, "what you said back there about being better with disguises five bodies ago... how many have you had?"

"How many bodies?" the Doctor replied, smiling slightly over at Prue as she nodded in confirmation. "Oh, seven before now; this is my eighth."

"Oh," Prue said, slightly uncertain how to respond to that. "And this... Master... you mentioned... he's like you? I mean, he's a..."

"Time Lord, yes," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "We normally have thirteen lives-"

"Sorry, but you mentioned that earlier and never really explained it; what did you _mean_ by you having thirteen lives?" Piper asked, looking briefly back at their strange guest. "Do you mean you... possess people?"

"Oh, nothing like that; whenever I'm fatally injured my body completely reconstructs itself on a cellular level," the Doctor replied with a brief smile before his expression became more sullen. "The Master, on the other hand..."

"He... doesn't do it that way, huh?" Phoebe asked, the grim expression on her face demonstrating that she herself didn't feel that light-hearted about the comment she'd just made.

"He doesn't," the Doctor confirmed with a grim nod. "He _used_ to be able to do it that way, but he exhausted most of his lives after he was trapped in orbit of a black hole during a confrontation I had with him about... _six_ lives ago, yes... and he's been looking for a way to get those lives back ever since; he tried to 'recharge' himself directly from the Eye of Harmony back on Gallifrey already, but when that failed and his own body was dying..."

He sighed. "He managed to take the body of the father of a friend of mine and use that to further his own existence."

"Oh," Prue said, memories of some of their own experiences with possessions or body-theft flashing across her mind as she looked at the Doctor. "And... now he's after your lives?"

"All five of the ones I have left, anyway," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "It's not exactly a simple procedure, but if he knows what he's doing- and he _will_ know what he's doing; when it comes to his own life the Master wouldn't take chances- he could do it, unless we get the TARDIS and him off Earth before midnight and undo what he's done to the Eye."

With that statement weighing on their minds with the scale of the task ahead of them, the Halliwells and the Doctor continued to drive in silence for a while until Prue spoke again.

"So..." she said, looking uncertainly over at the Doctor. "What you said earlier, about demons not being... supernatural..."

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, looking politely back at her.

"Well... what do you _mean_ by that?" Prue asked in confusion. "I mean, I could maybe understand how _my_ power makes sense- I read something once about a theory about humans manifesting abilities as we evolve-, but freezing time isn't exactly something you can just... _evolve_ the ability to do..."

"And then there's the spells and potions you've used, right?" the Doctor finished, smiling at her. "All good questions, but really it's all a question of focus and refinement; potion-making is essentially just chemistry with somewhat more unusual ingredients treated in a more unique manner, just as spells simply allow you a means to focus your talents on what you're seeking to accomplish by giving your minds a rhythm and pattern to help you concentrate on your desired goal..."

"Uh... OK..." Prue said, nodding uncertainly at the Doctor. "So... if it's not _magic_... where do our powers actually _come_ from?"

"Well, the full details are complicated to explain unless you have a far better knowledge of temporal and dimensional theory and the structure of reality than I think any of you do, so, to put it simply, your powers consist of you tapping into aspects of the higher dimensions of reality via evolutionary quirks of your ancestry," the Doctor replied with a casual shrug.

"Higher dimensions?" Phoebe repeated.

"The higher planes of existence- you know how 'time' is described as the fourth dimension of reality and the world you perceive is merely the first three of length, width and height, correct?" the Doctor asked, allowing the Halliwells to nod before he continued. "Your 'magic' is really nothing more than you tapping into the power of the higher dimensions that exist beyond the four you perceive; it's simply a case of you reaching out to higher powers to do things that aren't possible for you to do in _these_ dimensions any more than it would be possible for a two-dimensional person- essentially a person who was no more than a drawing- to climb up something. What you can do seems impossible by conventional standards simply because you don't have a concept of what it means to do what you can do; viewed from the higher dimensions, it's all rather prosaic, really..."

"So... it's not... real?" Piper asked, looking back at the Doctor uncertainly. "Demons, other Whitelighters, the spells... they're all just... misunderstandings?"

"Oh, demons are real enough, even if the Devil and that plays no role in their history; they're typically examples of certain groups of human beings who developed a particular awareness to certain aspects of the higher dimensions and thus began to exist outside of conventional human society, such as the Furies being based around an early Amazonian colony or the Wendigoes initially being a tribe that ate the hearts of animals to gain strength that was eventually corrupted when a man ate a woman's heart," the Doctor replied with a slightly saddened shrug. "Dangerous, I grant you, but still fundamentally human in their original origins; it's just that you'd need to go so far back in time to find them when they were human that it would be impossible to know if you were in the right place when you got there."

"As for spells..." the Doctor began with a brief smile before he shrugged nonchalantly. "Well, the words are important, never doubt that; even conventional writers such as William have been able to shape reality with the power of their words without any evolutionary enhancements or anomalies like you possess. It just isn't _magic_ in the sense that you're familiar with from stories, that's all; the supernatural isn't real in the strictest sense of the word, but when you're tapping into higher powers like this anything's possible..."

He paused for a moment as he looked uncertainly at the sisters. "Sorry; what are Whitelighters?"

"Kind of... guardian angels for witches; they're normally people who were known for good deeds in life and were given the chance to help others by higher powers after their deaths," Piper explained, looking slightly curiously at the Doctor as though wondering what he'd make of that.

"Well, that's certainly _possible_ , I suppose; under the right conditions higher powers _have_ been known to contact people on the verge of death and offer them the chance to live a new life for their own reasons, although I admit I'm more familiar with that kind of thing being done by the likes of the Pantheon of Dischord for the purpose of causing chaos..." the Doctor reflected briefly, before he shook his head nonchalantly and smiled reassuringly at them. "Still, it's not impossible to assume that there aren't other higher powers out there operating for more benevolent ends; I make it a point to try and never _disbelieve_ anything because otherwise you just end up limiting your options before you've even really started..."

"Talking of things starting, we're here now," Piper said- Prue couldn't help but wonder if Piper had put on a little extra speed to get here faster, but she couldn't blame her sister; the conversation with the Doctor might be fascinating, but it was still a _bit_ disturbing hearing their powers being 'dissected' like that-, pulling to a halt in front of the large building that the sisters recognised from the earlier news report as the Institute for Technological Advancement and Research, a vast crowd of people gathered before the building as they walked through the doors.

"Well, that's us _here_ , anyway," Prue said, looking uncertainly at her sisters and the Doctor. "The question now is how do we get _in_ there; we can't exactly just _walk_ in..."

"Or _can't_ we?" Phoebe asked, smiling as she looked over at her sisters before she glanced over at the Doctor uncertainly. "Uh... look, I get that you have a... new... view of the things we do, so if you're not comfortable..."

"Oh, I fully recognise the advantages of what you consider magic; the fact that I don't consider it such means nothing when getting down to whether or not it works," the Doctor said with a reassuring nod. "If you think you can get us in using your talents, feel free; there's no point in not using every resource available to you, after all."

"Right..." Phoebe said, taking a deep breath before she began to chant.

" _I call upon the ancient powers_

_To mask us for the future hour_

_Let those who see us believe us be_

_Someone who may enter free_."

As soon as she'd finished speaking, a brief glow surrounded the Halliwells and the Doctor before it faded away, leaving them seeming unchanged until Prue glanced in the mirror.

"Whoa..." she whispered, staring at her suddenly long blonde hair- fortunately not as vividly white as she'd possessed when she'd travelled into the future a few months back; implications of that timeline were something she _really_ preferred to avoid- surrounding a longer face with blue eyes and a slightly cold stare.

"Yeah, I know; cool, huh?" Phoebe replied. "Basic glamour charm; we still look the same to each other, but to everyone inside the Institute, we'll look like people they'll expect to see, letting us easily sneak in, get the clock for the Doc, and get out."

"Please don't call me 'Doc'," the Doctor put in, shooting a brief stare over at Phoebe before he smiled at her. "That said, an interesting job you've done here, Miss Halliwell."

"Great," Phoebe said, indicating the Institute with a wave of her hand. "With that sorted out, let's go; we've got a clock to nick."

"I'd prefer 'borrow', really..." the Doctor said, his tone slightly uncertain even as he got out of the car and began to walk after the Halliwells. "But, right now, any port in a storm will do, I suppose..."


	6. Stealing the Clock

Once they were inside the Institute and past the initial 'check-in desk'- fortunately nobody asked them for identification; Phoebe's spell must have helped them avoid attracting any questions as well as helping them get into the building in the first place-, Prue couldn't help but feel slightly impressed at the sheer scale of the building. She'd been to a few parties like this during her career at the auction house when attempting to negotiate or bid for a few pieces for Bucklands, but there was something about the modernity of this place when compared to the more 'old-world charm' of the places those parties had taken place in that made it more appealing.

"Whoa..." Piper said, looking at the massive hall around them in awe, glancing briefly at the sheer scale of tables and people around them. "This is... _incredible_..."

"I know; impressive, isn't it?" the Doctor said, indicating the table with a casual smile, only for the smile to fade as he glanced up at the landing where the clock they had come here for was located. "And _there_ is what we came here for..."

"OK, no offence, but how are we going to get _that_ thing out of here?" Phoebe asked, indicating the machine uncertainly. "I mean, I'm not exactly sure about how to do invisibility yet, and then there's the issue of the sheer _size_ of the damn thing..."

"Oh, don't worry about that; we need only the tiniest part of it..." the Doctor said, smiling slightly over at the Halliwells as he glanced around the hall before his eyes fell on a grey-haired man in a red jacket with a small grey goatee beard. "Ah, and there we are; just the man we need."

"And he is...?" Prue asked uncertainly.

"Oh, he's the man who put the clock together," the Doctor replied with a nonchalant smile. "Excuse me, please."

Before the Halliwells could stop him, the Doctor had walked over to the gentleman in question, leaving the three of them looking uncertainly at each other for a moment. Normally in a party, the obvious thing to do was just mingle, but factoring in the fact that they weren't entirely clear on who they looked like to everyone right now the sisters were reluctant to split up too much in case they attracted the attention of someone who knew their 'disguises'.

"Well..." Piper said after a brief pause as the Doctor finally began to talk with the other man. "This isn't _exactly_ how I saw us spending the Millennium Eve, but..."

"It's definitely a... unique experience, anyway," Prue reflected, smiling over at the Doctor as he continued to converse eagerly with the other man. "I mean, all that stuff he had to tell us about magic..."

"Yeah, about that; do you actually _believe_ any of what he said?" Phoebe put in.

"Huh?" Prue asked, looking back over at her sister.

"I mean, it's not that I don't _trust_ him, but... am I the only one who found all that stuff he had to tell us a _bit_ confusing?" Phoebe asked. "I mean, we're basically told that what we do is because we're tapping into the higher dimensions of reality- whatever _that_ means-, and we're just... _accepting_ this from a guy-?"

"Who has faced off against the personification of chaos for the entire universe on four separate occasions and twice held an object capable of granting the owner complete control over the quantum structure of the universe itself," the Doctor's voice suddenly interjected, suddenly rejoining the Halliwells with a casual smile as he indicated the small white object he now held in his hands.

"You stole his pass-card?" Phoebe said, the part of her that had once spent a great deal of time doing the same thing impressed at the skill involved.

"Only way we're going to get up there," the Doctor said with a casual shrug as he indicated the clock. "We have to hurry; we've only got an hour or so left before the TARDIS loses the ability to contain the Eye's energies..."

* * *

"Y'know, I'm a bit hazy on the details here; exactly _why_ are we stealing this thing?" Phoebe asked as she helped the Doctor undo the screws at the clock's base, Prue and Piper standing on either side of them to prevent anyone from spotting them before they were finished. "I mean, I'm not saying I don't believe you when you say you need it- this isn't exactly something you'd set out to steal on a whim-, but that doesn't mean it makes sense..."  
  
"Oh, it's simple enough; I just need the central processing chip from this clip to replace the TARDIS's timing mechanism so that I can safely restore the TARDIS's ability to travel in time, regain direct control of the Eye of Harmony, and get the TARDIS off-planet before the gravitational damage caused by the Eye becomes irreparable," the Doctor replied with a nonchalant shrug as he continued to work away at the panel before him. "This is where I wish I had my sonic screwdriver..."  
  
"Your what?" Phoebe asked.  
  
"Here we are," the Doctor said, pulling the panel out at the edges before reaching in to remove an elaborate cube-shaped container filled with circuit boards. Pulling out one circuit board, the Doctor reached in and carefully removed the small plastic chip in the middle of the board, its red flashing lights instantly ceasing as it was removed from the rest of the clock.  
  
"That's it?" Phoebe said.  
  
"I told you it was small," the Doctor replied.  
  
"What is it they say?" Phoebe asked, a slightly teasing smile on her face as she looked at him.  
  
"Yeah, they say that on my planet too," the Doctor replied, before sliding the circuit boards back in place and returning the panel to its original position. "Now then, let's be off."  
  
The Halliwells were just starting to walk away from the clock when one of the security staff appeared in front of them, the young man looking pointedly at the four of them.  
  
"I know you," the Doctor said, apparently unconcerned about the fact that he still had the stolen chip in his hand, Piper's current position and the public nature of their current location making it difficult for her to freeze their surroundings (Particularly when she wasn't sure if the Doctor would be frozen or not when she did that; he might be listed in the Book of Shadows as 'Time's Champion', but the more time she spent with him the more she got the impression that he couldn't really _do_ much himself no matter how smart he was...).  
  
"Gareth," the Doctor said to the young man, the slight surprise on the other man's face making it clear that the Doctor's name had been accurate, "answer the second question on your midterm, not the third, the third may look easier, but you'll mess it up."  
  
"What?" Gareth said, looking at the Time Lord in confusion.  
  
"Remember," the Doctor said with a pointed nod, "answer the _second_ question; don't forget."  
  
"I won't," Gareth replied, before he pushed his confusion aside to assume a more professional stare. "Now can I see what's in your hand, sir?"  
  
In response, the Doctor opened his hand, revealing a small yellow candy that the Halliwells instantly recognised as a jelly baby, with no sign of the chip that had originally been in his palm.  
  
"It's a jelly baby," the Doctor said by way of explanation as Gareth picked up the confection, staring at it in confusion as the Halliwells and the Doctor walked past him.  
  
"What was that all about?" Prue asked the Doctor in confusion as they walked along the walkways away from the clock.  
  
"Ten years from now, Gareth will head the seismology unit at the UCLA taskforce and devise a system for accurately predicting earthquakes," the Doctor replied by way of explanation.  
  
"Seriously?" Phoebe said in surprise.  
  
"Of course," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "His inventions save the human race several times, but first he must graduate in poetry-"  
  
"Ohmigod..." Phoebe said, her face suddenly going white as she grabbed at Prue and the Doctor's arms, giving the Doctor no chance to continue his explanation. "Get down!"  
  
Before they could ask Phoebe what she meant by that, she had pulled the Time Lord and her sister down to their knees, Piper swiftly following their cue as Phoebe pointed at a figure in the room below them.  
  
" _Look_!" she hissed, her finger indicating a man dressed in a black leather jacket and sunglasses, staring at the people around him with an authoritative expression that his sunglasses did little to effectively conceal.  
  
"What-?" Piper began, before an explanation occurred to her. "Oh God... is that the guy in your vision?"  
  
"Your vision?" the Doctor asked, looking over curiously at Phoebe. "You had a vision about that man?"  
  
"Yeah, it's my power; I see the future under... well, when I have to," Phoebe said by way of explanation. "You two were fighting each other in a room with a stone eye while he was wearing some kind of red robes; I thought he might be that 'Master' guy you mentioned..."  
  
"I'd say so," the Doctor muttered, his expression grim as he looked at the man in leather. "He must have found some way to reanimate his mental energy after the physical destruction of his body; he must have intended to take control of my body by crashing the TARDIS, but when I got shot and taken to the hospital, he must have compromised by taking one of the hospital staff until he could get mine..."  
  
"He took over someone's _body_... to pass the _time_?" Prue said, staring incredulously at the Doctor.  
  
"So... is there any way we can...?" Piper asked uncertainly.  
  
"Get him out?" the Doctor finished, shaking his head grimly. "Unlikely; the shock of attempting to compress a Time Lord's mind into a human form- no matter what he's done to himself in the past- would almost invariably burn out a human's synapses in a matter of minutes."  
  
"Oh," Piper said. "So, the guy he's using...?"  
  
"He's dead," the Doctor confirmed with a grim nod, before his eyes narrowed thoughtfully as the man in leather began to talk with a young Chinese man in casual clothing who clearly hadn't come to this part because he'd been invited himself. "What in the world... of course, _that's_ how he opened it!"  
  
"Sorry, what are you talking about?" Phoebe asked, staring at the young man uncertainly; she thought that she recalled seeing him out of the corner of her eye in one or two scenes from her earlier vision, but there was no way to be sure...  
  
"Like most advanced Gallifreyian technology, the Eye of Harmony is controlled by a retina scan to restrict access to it only to those who are required to access it," the Doctor explained. "Normally only specifically-qualified Time Lords are able to access it- stellar manipulation is a very difficult science; the first Time Lord to master it ended up trapped in an anti-matter universe the first time he put his theories into practise-, but around... oh, eighty years ago from my perspective... during an invasion of Gallifrey, we were forced to restrict our enemies' ability to access key Gallifreyian technology by reprogramming the retina scans to respond only to my friend Evelyn Smythe's eye-pattern; since she was human, there would be no way for our enemies to use anyone else's eyes to access the systems that we were protecting with retina patterns. We restored the program to normal after the crisis was over, but there was always the possibility that my TARDIS in particular would still be sensitive to human eyes if any of my companions looked at the wrong part of the ship; he must have used that boy to open the Eye himself..."  
  
"OK, so now that we've got that question sorted, any chance we could get out of here?" Prue hissed. "I'd rather _not_ stick around and have to deal with the homicidal maniac who's trying to take your body, after all..."  
  
"Right," the Doctor said, nodding at the eldest Halliwell as he began to head towards stairs that would lead them down. "Come on; we have to move quickly..."  
  
After a few moments of hurried running along another the walkway, the small group finally reached a staircase taking them back down to the main area, only to find themselves suddenly face-to-face with the man in leather, smiling nonchalantly at them, the young man standing slightly behind him looking uncertainly at the confrontation taking place.  
  
"Doctor..." the man in leather said, smiling at the Halliwells' new ally in a manner that left none of them entirely comforted.  
  
"Master," the Doctor replied, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the other man. "Sorry I can't be here the way you remember me, but you know how it is; landing with a damaged timing mechanism, you're never sure if you landed somewhere safe..."  
  
"Quite," the man the Halliwells now knew as the Master replied. "We can make this simple, Doctor; simply surrender-"  
  
"Actually, I have a better idea," Prue said, having taken in their immediate surroundings enough to confirm that what she was about to do wouldn't jeopardise their secret. "How about... _this_?"  
  
With that, she quickly flicked both hands at the two men before her, sending the Master flying into the left wall of the corridor and the other man into the right.  
  
" _Go_!" Piper yelled, the four of them running past the Master, only for him to suddenly spit something that Phoebe instinctively blocked with her left hand, wincing as whatever it was struck her wrist even as she continued to run for the exit.  
  
"Is this something you guys can normally do?" Phoebe asked, indicating her wrist- currently covered with some kind of smoking yellow 'gunk', for lack of another term- to the Doctor as they dashed through the door, ignoring the confused calls from the staff at the reception desk.  
  
"Spitting as a defence mechanism? Not really, no; it must be a side-effect of whatever he did to survive his execution," the Doctor replied, shrugging slightly as he indicated the car. "I'd take a closer look, but without even my sonic screwdriver anything I do here would be limited; once we get back to the TARDIS I can run a more thorough diagnostic once the Eye's been stabilised..."  
  
"Talking of which, let's move," Prue said, indicating the car. "Phoebe, can you drive?"  
  
"With my hand like this?" her youngest sister said, indicating the arm that had taken the Master's attack. "I'd prefer to make sure nothing's wrong before I start driving..."  
  
"I'll drive," the Doctor said, smiling briefly at the sisters as he slid into the driver's seat. "I know where the TARDIS is; I can get us there in a matter of minutes."  
  
"Good," Prue said, shooting an anxious glance back at the doors to the Institute; the sooner they got away from this place and left the Master and his new ally behind, the happier she'd be.


	7. Into the TARDIS

"So, what you said to Gareth..." Phoebe asked the Doctor, as he continued to drive along the road towards the Chinatown district of San Francisco.

"Yes?" the Doctor asked, looking briefly back at the youngest Halliwell with a slight smile, his eyes only briefly flicking down to the wrist that was still slightly smoking from the Master's attack; he'd definitely need to make checking out a priority once the immediate crisis was averted, he still had no real idea what the Master had done to himself to make him capable of doing _that_...

"Well... how did you _know_ that stuff you said to him?" Phoebe continued. "I mean, I can get you knowing what happened to him in the future- you probably read it in history or something like that-, but how did you know that stuff about what question he should answer?"

"Oh, that's just a result of my current heightened sensitivity to the temporal currents due to the time I've spent in close proximity to the psychic nexus that your house is built over," the Doctor said with a casual smile. "It's nothing exceptional, really; any Time Lord in my position-"

" _What_?" Prue, Piper and Phoebe said, looking at the Time Lord with renewed intensity at this latest casual revelation.

"Oh, didn't you know?" the Doctor asked as he looked back at them in slight surprise. "When a geographical point is equidistant from the five spiritual elements, it becomes a place of great power in terms of potential mental and higher energy, and your house is-"

"The exact same distance away from the bay, some natural hot springs, the trees of Kenwood Park, the twin peaks, and the gold found in Mountain Lake Park; we know," Prue said, waving a hand briefly as she looked at the Doctor. "And... what does that have to do with anything?"

"Oh, as I was saying earlier, locations like your house generate a certain psychic energy- verging on the power of the higher dimensions if accessed in the right manner, actually- that can be used by anyone if channelled the right way; given the time I've spent there in the last couple of hours, along with such factors as my psychic receivers still being rather sensitive after my last regeneration, I'm just... more aware of the temporal flow of events in the immediate area than I might be under normal circumstances, which allows me some degree of awareness of the past and future of certain people I meet," the Doctor explained with a nonchalant shrug. "It's nothing to be concerned about, I assure you; you've been living there so long that you're-"

"Already naturally attuned to it; trust me, we know," Phoebe said, shooting the Time Lord a brief, bitter glare before she turned her attention back to her burned wrist.

"Is... something wrong?" the Doctor asked, looking uncertainly over at Piper and Prue.

"Let's just say that... Phoebe had an unpleasant experience with something trapped beneath the nexus and leave it at that," Piper said simply, a brief glance with her sisters confirming her theory; they weren't about to share the story of 'Woogeyman' unless they had to.

"A nexal spirit?" the Doctor said, smiling at the thought of such a creature as he glanced between the sisters before his expression fell as he took in their reactions to it. "I take it that the spirit was a... negative one?"

"You could say that, yeah," Phoebe said, directing another glare at the Time Lord. "The thing tried to take control of me and turn me against Prue and Piper; I came _this_ close to _killing_ my own _sisters_ -"

"Ah, I see; sorry for bringing it up," the Doctor said, shrugging slightly before he turned a corner into an alleyway that Phoebe recognised as the one she'd been walking past that day (Had that really only been twelve hours ago?), coming to a halt in front of the side street marked off by crime scene tape, the blue box standing in the middle of the alley.

"What the...?" Prue said, looking at the object in front of them in surprise as the Doctor stopped the car. "What's a 'Police Public Call Box'?"

"It was used in England in the fifties, sixties and seventies as a means of calling the police and containing prisoners before mobile phones," the Doctor said with a casual smile as he stopped the engine and got out of the car. "I spent some time in the sixties a few centuries back, and my chameleon circuit got stuck; I've thought about fixing it once or twice, but I like it like this."

"Huh?" Piper said, looking at him in confusion as she and her sisters stepped out of the car themselves. "You... _like_ your time machine looking like a phone box?"

"It's easy to remember where you parked it this way; I used a working chameleon circuit once or twice and I was always worried about forgetting where I'd left the old girl," the Doctor said, walking up to the ship with a smile before he groaned as he reached for the door. "Of course; I don't _have_ my key..."

"You don't have another one?" Prue asked, looking at the Time Lord incredulously as the Halliwells walked over to join him. "Shouldn't you have-"

"A spare key in the cubby hole above the 'P'; of _course_!" the Doctor said, turning to look at Prue with a smile. "If you'd be so kind...?"

Looking bemusedly at him for a moment- she hadn't expected him to suddenly be so specific about where he kept his spare key after his apparent ignorance of its location only moments ago-, Prue shrugged and waved her hand at the indicated area, a small key flying off the roof and landing in Prue's hand, Prue subsequently passing the key to the Doctor.

"Thank you," the Doctor said, turning the key and opening the door, subsequently walking into the box. Bemused, but with nothing else to do, the Halliwells followed the Time Lord into the box...

* * *

As soon as they had walked through the door, the sisters' eyes widened incredulously at the sight before them. The interior of the box was vast, with wooden-looking walls stretching out to a size that seemed to be as wide as the entire Halliwell mansion, bookshelves and clocks scattered around the room, as well as doors that presumably led to other rooms in this incredible machine. The centre of the room was dominated by what looked like a control console, covered with various switches and dials that the Doctor was currently studying urgently, the console itself being surrounded by six metal support beams that stretched up to the ceiling, along with a blue transparent tube reaching from the centre of the console to the roof.  
  
"Oh my God..." Piper whispered, staring at the room before them incredulously. "This... this is..."  
  
"Yes, I know, 'it's bigger on the inside'; feel free to wonder how I do that, everyone does," the Doctor said, smiling briefly at them before a strange sound that sounded like a large bell being rung at regular intervals, accompanied by a faint sound in the background like something was groaning. "Oh no..."  
  
"I take it that's bad?" Prue asked, as she and her sisters hurried over to the central console as the Doctor studied the controls.  
  
"It's a warning," the Doctor replied, anxiously studying the console readings in front of him. "The TARDIS is dying, and we don't even have enough auxiliary power to move next door..."  
  
Crouching down in front of the console, he removed the beryllium chip from his pocket, opened up a panel in front of him, and set to work, casually tossing the old chip aside before he set to work inserting the new one.  
  
"So... this is your time machine?" Phoebe asked, looking around it with an uncertain smile. "No offence, but it... looks kinda Jules Verne-ish..."  
  
"Oh, no offence taken; Verne and Wells were both old friends of mine with some very interesting ideas for their eras even before I helped give them a few pointers," the Doctor said nonchalantly as he worked. "Besides, this is a relatively recent configuration; the ship changed the desktop theme after I had an incident with my family-"  
  
"Sorry, the 'desktop theme'?" Piper repeated incredulously as she looked at the Doctor.  
  
"It's the closest analogy the translation circuit can provide to explain what I did to get the console room looking like this; the actual term relies on a better knowledge of trans-dimensional architecture than your planet's developed by now," the Doctor said with a nonchalant amused smile as he moved a few small wires aside to make the chip fit better in its slot. "Anyway, it gets the job done; this old Type Forty's been from the Big Bang all the way to the last days of the Universe itself, all with only a couple of stops back to Gallifrey for some minor maintenance..."  
  
"Wait a minute; the _end of the universe_?" Prue said, looking uncertainly at the Doctor, a slightly apprehensive expression in her eyes even as she spoke. "As in, the _end_ end of the universe?"  
  
"Oh, don't worry about it; it's not going to happen for billions of years, and it's a totally natural process..." the Doctor began, before he seemed to catch himself as he realised what he was saying, focusing his attention back on inserting the chip before he stood up and looked over at them with a relieved smile. " _Perfect_ ; the Eye's closing. Now, let's see..."  
  
As he turned his attention to another display on the console, his smile fell. "Oh no..."  
  
"What?" Prue asked; even with her limited experience of this man, his tone of voice would have meant bad news in _any_ situation.  
  
"I have a horrible feeling we're already too late," the Doctor replied simply.  
  
"Excuse me?" Phoebe said, indicating her watch, fortunately apparently undamaged by the Master's 'slime attack'. "It's 11:48; we still have eleven minutes-"  
  
"Even with the Eye itself sealed, the exotic particles that have been released from the Eye are still enough to cause serious damage to the surrounding universe," the Doctor said, turning his attention back to the screen before him as he urgently studied the readouts, turning a dial and mover a lever as he spoke. "Just hold on; if I can activate the temporal scanner and link it in to the galactic scanner..."  
  
Looking up at a sudden glow from the ceiling, the Halliwells couldn't help but be impressed at the sight that had replaced the roof. It looked as though they were suddenly in a small planetarium, displaying various planets and what looked like a galaxy, all of them slowly revolving in incredible detail, Earth located near what could best be described as the 'middle'; there was even a comet passing through the system...  
  
"I'm setting the temporal vision coordinates for one minute after midnight," the Doctor explained, cutting off their appreciation of the sight. "If I'm right, than the Eye has been open too long and there is no future; I only hope- _NO_!" he yelled, slamming his hands against the console as the planets displayed above them began to vanish as a wave of energy swept across the system, the planets exploding in bursts of white and orange energy as the wave struck them before the Doctor shut the display down once again.  
  
"I take it that thing's pretty accurate?" Phoebe asked, wishing she could erase that image from her mind; they'd dealt with the possibility of their own deaths before now, but the idea of something devastating enough to destroy _planets_...  
  
"Whatever's happening can't be stopped simply by closing the Eye," the Doctor said, looking desperately at the console, bowing his head in thought for a moment before he smiled as a sudden thought occurred to him. "But if we went _back_..."  
  
"Back?" Piper repeated, looking uncertainly at the Doctor. "As in... back in _time_?"  
  
"Precisely," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "Right now, the future is in a state of flux- what's happening right now isn't a fixed point in time, and it _can_ be prevented so long as we're not actually here when it _happens_ ; back-tracking along your own timeline can be complicated enough at the best of times-; if I can set the TARDIS into reverse and go back in time before the destruction is complete, the old girl should be able to reabsorb the exotic particles that the Eye has already released and undo the damage they've caused to Earth's molecular structure before it gets any worse..."  
  
"So... why aren't you doing that already?" Piper asked. "I mean, we _are_ in a time machine-"  
  
" _With_ no power," the Doctor replied grimly.  
  
" _What_?" Prue said.  
  
"The Eye being open so long must have drained the TARDIS's power supply-" the Doctor began.  
  
"Hold on, didn't you say that the TARDIS is _powered_ by the Eye?" Prue asked, waving a hand in confusion. "How can it _run out_?"  
  
"It's only powered by the Eye to a certain extent; the TARDIS has its own independent power supply that it periodically refuels by drawing on the residual energy feed of the Eye itself whenever it's in the area, given that tapping _directly_ into the Eye's power would be potentially dangerous..." the Doctor began, his voice trailing off as he looked thoughtfully upwards. "Wait wait wait wait wait... how are you at setting alarm clocks?"  
  
"Huh?" Piper said.  
  
"Well, we manage to get out of bed in the mornings..." Prue began uncertainly.  
  
"Just do what you can," the Doctor said, beckoning them over to his side of the console as he ducked down to bring up what seemed to be a tool-box, indicating the control console as he spoke. "Now, if we can pre-set the coordinates on the console to the date and time we want- basically two days ago, with maybe a short geographical hop in any direction-, I can divert power from the Eye itself directly into the Time Rotor-"  
  
"And jump-start the TARDIS?" Phoebe asked, a slight smile of understanding crossing her face.  
  
"Precisely," the Doctor confirmed with a nod. "It's a _bit_ risky, of course- channel too much power into the rotor and we risk starting everything off again-, but with the TARDIS drained to this extent it shouldn't require more than a few seconds to absorb the required power anyway..."  
  
"Ah," Piper said, before she shrugged slightly. "Well, we don't exactly have a surplus of good ideas right now; where do we start?"  
  
"Just hit the top yellow switch on the console there," the Doctor said, as he ducked down underneath the console and set to work as Phoebe did what he'd instructed, only to suddenly take a small step back from the console and stare at her hands, her arms suddenly shaking slightly as she bowed her head while staring at them.  
  
"Could someone pass me the neutron ram?" the Doctor asked, ignorant of Phoebe's current state as Piper and Prue exchanged anxious looks. "Phoebe, the neutron ram?"  
  
Just as the Doctor stood up, Phoebe suddenly looked up, but her sisters barely had time to register that her eyes were now pitch-black before she had turned around and hit the Doctor in the head with a thick rod from the toolbox.  
  
" _Phoebe_!" Piper yelled.  
  
"Your sister can't hear you now, Miss Halliwell," a familiar voice said, Piper and Prue spinning around to stare in horror at the Master standing nonchalantly in the TARDIS, his young associate just behind him. "She's currently under _my_ influence right now."  
  
"Oh yeah?" Piper said, flicking her hands out at the two men before her- if she could just freeze them for a few moments, they might be able to take them out-, only to be shocked when nothing happened. "What the...?"  
  
Further thoughts from Piper about the sudden inability to access her powers were cut off when Prue suddenly collapsed to the ground beside her for no apparent reason, the increasingly-panicked middle Halliwell spinning around to face Phoebe just in time for her now-literally-black-eyed sister to hit her in the head with the same rod she'd just used on the Doctor, Piper falling into unconsciousness before she could think of something else to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wanting to know, Piper's power doesn't work in the TARDIS due to it existing in a state of temporal grace where Time doesn't technically exist; typically, this feature simply slows the rate at which passengers in the TARDIS age- according to the Sixth Doctor's companion Evelyn Smythe in the novel "Instruments of Darkness", while in the TARDIS months can pass while your body only ages a few weeks-, but with Piper's power it means that her power doesn't 'register' that it's being called upon because, as far as her magic can tell, Time's essentially _already_ been frozen so there's nothing more it can do.
> 
> As for Prue falling unconscious like that...
> 
> Well, you'll learn more about what happened to her in the next chapter.


	8. The Prudent TARDIS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This picks up looking at what happened to Prue that caused her to fall unconscious in the last chapter; I'll get back to the Doctor, Piper, Phoebe, and the Master soon, I assure you
> 
> Just to clarify, this takes place before the episode- albeit _just_ before the episode- where Prue learned about her power of astral projection, which is why Piper doesn't think of that as an explanation for the current situation

"What the _hell_?" Prue said, shaking her head as she looked around herself. One moment she'd been trying to reach out with her telekinesis so that she could knock out the Master and accomplice, and the next she was standing in some kind of white corridor with strange roundels, all of them giving off a faint, somehow comforting glow...

" _Hello, Prudence Halliwell_ ," a voice suddenly said, cutting off Prue's confusion.

Spinning around in surprise at the voice, Prue's eyes instantly fell onto a woman with dark blonde hair in a dark blue dress, the dress the same shade of blue as her eyes, both of which were almost the same colour as the TARDIS.

" _It is... interesting... to see you_ ," the woman said, smiling slightly at her. " _I... do not receive many visitors_."

"Uh... who are you?" Prue said, looking uncertainly at the woman before her.

" _I am the TARDIS_ ," the woman replied.

Prue could only blink at the simple impossibility of that statement.

"Hold on; you're the _TARDIS_?" she repeated, staring incredulously at the woman. "As in, the Doctor's blue box with the ridiculously large interior space?"

" _Exactly_ ," the woman said, smiling slightly at Prue, her warm smile developing into amusement as she looked at her. " _He has not told you, has he_?"

"Who's- hold on, you mean the Doctor, right?" Prue asked, asking and answering her own question practically simultaneously, the TARDIS nodding in confirmation at her query. "What are you talking about; what hasn't he told me?"

" _That I am alive_ ," the woman replied with a slight smile.

"Uh..." Prue said, blinking in confusion for a moment, holding up a hand in a 'halt' gesture to try and make sure she didn't get anything else to process until she was ready, "when you say that you're _alive_ , you mean..."

" _I mean that I am sentient, Prue Halliwell_ ," the woman- or should that be the TARDIS?- replied, a soft smile still on her face as the other woman stared at her in confusion. " _As a rule, my kind only possess a limited sentience- we are normally able to alert our drivers to danger and compensate when we are about to hit anomalies while travelling, and that is it-, but under the Doctor's control, I have been given far greater freedom to develop, my usual restrictions lifted so that he and I may wander to our hearts' content_..."

The woman shook her head grimly as she seemed to look upwards at something for a moment, the smile fading from her face as she spoke. " _Of course, that also leaves me somewhat more vulnerable to the influences of certain... others..., but we must all make sacrifices for freedom, must we not_?"

"Right..." Prue said, waving her hand to indicate her surroundings even as she tried to look apologetically at the other woman before her. "Look, not that this isn't fascinating, but cane we get back to what I'm actually _doing_ here in the first place? The last thing I remember, I was trying to use my power to knock the Master out-"

" _Yes... you possess telekinesis, correct_?" the TARDIS- Prue couldn't keep thinking of the woman before her as just 'the woman', and thinking of her as the TARDIS was the only alternative available- replied, smiling slightly at her. " _Combined with the unique circumstances of your upbringing on such a psychically active location, your ability extends into an intriguing potential for psychic power, Prue Halliwell; when you attempted to reach out to move the dark one with your mind, your mind linked to my telepathic circuits. I was already weak from loss of power, and my Doctor's mind is still settling from his last regeneration; I instinctively 'latched on' to your mind as a source of stability when I sensed its actions, subsequently drawing you into my telepathic circuits so that we could better communicate_ -"

"Wait; you... dragged my _mind_ into you... so that we could have a chat?" Prue said, looking incredulously at the TARDIS. "We don't have _time_ for this; you're _dying_ and the Master has my sisters-!"

" _I know_ ," the TARDIS replied, smiling reassuringly at her. " _Fortunately, you are now in a position to do far more to those who would turn me against my pilot than you could ever do if you had remained outside in the real world_."

Prue blinked.

"Uh... what?" she said, looking uncertainly at the woman before her.

" _Follow me, Prudence Halliwell_ ," the TARDIS said, indicating a nearby door with a brief smile. " _You have much to do and less time to learn how to do it in_."

With nothing else to do in a situation that was rapidly becoming more complicated than anything Prue had been involved in since she had first become a witch- and it hadn't exactly been simply before now either-, she was left with no choice but to follow the strange woman before her and hope that she would figure out something useful to do in this whole mess before it was too late for her sisters...

* * *

Piper couldn't believe it; things had been bad when she'd first become a witch, but she'd only ever expected- after the initial shock had gone past- to have to deal with a few unpleasant demon-related deaths that she hadn't been able to stop even in a worst-case scenario, and here she was, the only one of her sisters still conscious and on their ally's side- even if Phoebe was _definitely_ hypnotised by the Master; the bit where her eyes went totally black was a fairly big clue that things had gone wrong somehow-, with a front-row seat to the death of the guy who'd been saving the world for decades and subsequently the possible destruction of the entire _planet_ to look forward to?  
  
She didn't even have the ability to yell in protest; the Master had gagged her while she was still unconscious, leaving her with her hands and feet tied up as she sat in one corner of the room they were now in, a vast stone eye- most likely the 'Eye of Harmony' the Doctor had been talking about earlier- in the centre of the room and two parapets on either side of it at the top of a small flight of stairs.  
  
The Doctor was currently held in position in the right alcove in a bizarre device that, from what Piper could make out, was equipped with lenseless 'glasses' that forced his eyes constantly open by pressing against his eyelids, a circlet of what seemed to be nails around his head, what looked like the chestpiece of a classic knight's suit of armour on his chest, and a bar holding both arms in position on either side of his head, a chain stretching up from the bar towards the roof above him.  
  
"Lee!" the Doctor yelled urgently at the Master's young 'associate'- Piper couldn't believe that the kid was stupid enough to fall for the Master's apparent story; under what circumstances could anyone believe that someone who went around calling himself 'the Master' was the good guy while 'the Doctor' was the villain, even _without_ what the Master had done to Phoebe-, desperately trying to appeal to the only person in the room still mobile enough to help him. "This is your last chance-!"  
  
"This is my _only_ chance!" Lee countered, a resolution in his voice that scared Piper; the idea that anyone could have lived a life which left them apparently willing to go along with the end of the world just to get away from it all- even if the Master had probably done something to Lee's mind; from what the Doctor had said of his foe Piper wouldn't put it past the guy- was enough to shake up almost everything she knew about human nature.  
  
"He's right, Doctor," the Master continued, looking up at the Doctor with a dismissive sneer. "There's nothing for him here, no family, no gangs, only death. But with me, he gets to see the Universe."  
  
"Actually," a voice said, "given that you'll be using my new friend to take him anywhere, I've got something to say about that."  
  
Instantly, the Master turned around, the Doctor and Piper turning their gaze from the other Time Lord- although Piper had to wonder if he could be called that if he was in a human's body right now- to look at the source of the voice; Prue Halliwell, now dressed in what looked for all the world like Time Lord robes, standing directly on the Eye of Harmony as she gazed out at the room before her... even as her unconscious form also lay on the ground beside Piper.  
  
" _You_?" the Master said, glaring at her with an anger that matched Piper's shock at this unexpected new development.  
  
"Me," Prue replied, her tone surprisingly calm despite the strangeness of the current situation as she folded her arms to glare at the Master. "You don't belong in those robes."  
  
"And you _do_?" the Master countered, waving his hand to indicate her current attire. "You're not even from Gallifrey-!"  
  
"And you attempted to destroy the entire planet to save your own life; I think it's safe to say that you forsook any right to call yourself a Time Lord a long time ago," Prue countered, her gaze narrowing as she continued to direct a hard stare towards the Master.  
  
"Wait a- he _what_?" Lee said, looking at the Master incredulously. "What does she mean, you-?"  
  
"She's _lying_ -" the Master began urgently, even as Piper noted that his evident discomfort at Prue's last statement made it clear that she'd touched a nerve with their new foe.  
  
"She's not lying; you attempted to open the prime Eye of Harmony just to gain the energy to restore _yourself_ when you would have sucked Gallifrey into the Eye at the same time!" the Doctor yelled, his voice sounding a little hoarse even as he clearly refused to give in and let his old enemy win. "Lee, don't _listen_ to him; this is your last chance to stay alive-!"  
  
"And what would _you_ know of 'last chances', _Doctor_?" the Master growled, spinning around to look at him. "The man who takes his precious moral high ground so seriously that he couldn't even kill the _Daleks_ when he had the chance? I have wasted _all_ my lives because of your precious 'morality', and-"  
  
" _All_ your lives!" the Doctor yelled, seizing on this last desperate chance. "Didn't you tell Lee I'd taken your lives? Lee, he's _lying_! He's used all his lives, and now he wants _mine_! Like I told you, this is my TARDIS, this is my body-!"  
  
"Don't believe him," the Master interrupted, a cold, dismissive tone to his voice that made the Doctor stay quiet better than a loud yell ever could have. "Open the Eye."  
  
For a moment there was nothing but silence in the room, Lee standing silently beside the Eye as his gaze shifted between the Master and the Doctor before it turned once again to study the three women in the room as well; Phoebe staring ahead with pure-black eyes, Piper looking desperately between her sisters- even if she was still confused about what Prue was doing in two places at once-, and Prue simply standing and staring grimly between the two still-free men in the room.  
  
"Open the _Eye_!" the Master yelled.  
  
"NO!" Lee countered, his expression resolute as he looked at the Time Lord. "You lied to me!"  
  
"Thanks for understanding that," Prue said, smiling briefly at Lee. "That gives me freedom to do _this_."  
  
With that, she extended one hand towards the Master, and the man in robes suddenly flew backwards, hitting the wall behind him with a powerful thump.  
  
"What...?" Lee asked, looking at Prue in confusion.  
  
"If we'd done that before you'd learned what the Master was for yourself, you'd have continued to try and fight us," Prue explained, before she turned to walk towards Phoebe, placing her hand on her sister's forehead as Phoebe continued to stare ahead of herself with a black-eyed gaze; evidently her current state of hypnosis didn't allow her to help the Master unless she was actually ordered to do so. "Now then, I hope this works..."  
  
Before Piper or Lee could ask what she was talking about, a brilliant glow suddenly spread from Prue's hand to envelop Phoebe's forehead, the young woman suddenly staggering backwards with a loud scream before she raised her head once again, her eyes now normal.  
  
"What the...?" Phoebe said, looking at her surroundings in confusion.  
  
"I'll explain later," Prue said, reaching over to flick her fingers at Piper, undoing the ropes that had been keeping her immobile, before she directed a similar gesture to release the Doctor from his bonds. "We have to hurry; we've only got a few more minutes before the TARDIS reaches critical mass."  
  
"About three minutes, by my count!" the Doctor yelled as he hurried down the stairs from the balcony where the Master had chained him up, throwing the iron waistcoat and headgear aside as he ran to join them. "Hurry; we don't have long-!"  
  
"We have more time than you think," Prue replied, waving her hand once again as she gave her new friend a brief smile. At almost the same time as Prue waved her hand, the room around them suddenly seeming to blur before it seemed to change into the TARDIS's console room, the five of them- with the exceptions of the Master and the unconscious Prue, although the standing one remained among them- now standing beside the control console.  
  
"What the-?" Lee asked, looking around him in confusion even as the Doctor's gaze turned to look at Prue with wide-eyed incredulity.  
  
"Incredible..." he whispered, looking at her with an expression that somehow put Piper in mind of a bizarre combination of the look that Andy and had had on their faces when looking at Prue; admiration and affection mixed with an eager desire to know more. "You're... _in_ the TARDIS, aren't you?"  
  
"Basically, anyway," Prue confirmed with a nod. "When I tried to use my power inside the ship, my mind unintentionally formed a link to the TARDIS telepathic circuits and the ship drew me inside; according to the TARDIS's consciousness, while I'm in here I can essentially act as the ship's 'avatar', directly controlling its interior functions while retaining access to my own powers..."  
  
"Up to a certain point, anyway; correct?" the Doctor asked.  
  
"Up to a point, anyway," Prue confirmed with a nod. "I couldn't steer this thing even if it had full power, and apparently my brain will burn out from attempting to maintain this kind of control- even if it's only by remote- if I keep it up for longer than a few minutes-"  
  
" _What_?" Piper and Phoebe yelled in shock as they stared at their sister.  
  
"It's a simple case of her brain lacking the necessary senses to cope with the stimuli she's receiving; it's essentially similar to what happened in _Man Plus_ ," the Doctor said briefly by way of explanation, even as he knelt down underneath the console and began to pull wires out of the console, muttering vaguely to himself as he did so. "Now then, if I can link this to this, I _should_ be able to reroute power directly; all we need at the moment is something to get us out of here..."  
  
" _Man Plus_?" Phoebe repeated, looking in confusion between Prue and Piper. "What's _Man Plus_?"  
  
" _Man Plus_ by Frederick Pohl, detailing humanity's efforts to develop a new form of man adapted to life on Mars as the world approached an environmental crisis that would render it uninhabitable in the not-too-distant future," Prue responded almost automatically. "The first test subject of the cybernetic experiments necessary to create the artificial Martians failed because the test subject's brain was left at a relatively human norm which resulted in him essentially suffering a stroke because he couldn't cope with the increased sensory input he was receiving..."  
  
She shook her head in confusion as she raised her hand to her forehead. "Hold on; I've never _read_ that book..."  
  
"No, but I have, and the TARDIS- and, for the moment, you- are linked to my mind thanks to the telepathic circuits; you're just subconsciously drawing on my memories of having read it," the Doctor said, standing up and flicking a couple of switches as he studied the readouts on the console before him. "Now then, this _might_ feel a bit strange from your current perspective, Prue, so I apologise in advance; just give me a few... more... seconds... _now_!"  
  
With that, he flicked a final switch on the console, and the ship suddenly shuddered before a pulse of blue energy moved from the top and bottom of the central column to meet in the middle, the column subsequently beginning to move as a wheezing, groaning sound filled the TARDIS.  
  
"Oh my God..." Prue whispered, her eyes widening as she looked up at the ceiling, her eyes glowing in a manner that made her sisters automatically uncomfortable. "It's _beautiful_..."  
  
"Doctor...?" Phoebe began to ask.  
  
"Oh, she's just witnessing the Time Vortex- the fifth dimension of the universe, if you want to know- as we enter it; it's nothing serious yet," the Doctor said, looking at a display on the console that featured an Edwardian-looking clock as it began to run backwards before flicking a couple of switches. "Now then, that _should_ put us into-"  
  
Anything else he might have said was cut off when Prue suddenly gasped in shock at something before her body suddenly bent double as though something had grabbed her around the waist, subsequently flying backwards through the air towards a nearby door before vanishing in a brief glow of white energy.  
  
"What the...?" Piper said, uncertain whether to glare at the Doctor for answers or just give up on the current situation in frustration; ever since they ran into this guy, it seemed like she and her sisters had been trying to do their 'job' on a scale that they were nowhere near being ready to handle, now that her sister had vanished just after the doctor had admitted that she was doing could give her _brain damage_...  
  
"Oh no..." the Doctor whispered, staring apprehensively at the door that Prue had been drawn towards before she disappeared. "He's regained consciousness..."  
  
"The Master?" Piper said, her shock being automatically replaced by fear even as she, the Doctor and Phoebe turned to run towards the door that Prue had just been drawn through, each of them hoping that the Master couldn't have the chance to do too much to Prue before they got there.


	9. Millennium

For a moment, Prue wasn't sure where she was, her body and mind thrown off by the sudden loss of the additional senses that she'd become accustomed to- even if she had acknowledged from the beginning that she couldn't _keep_ them that didn't stop them being impressive-, and then she saw the Master standing over her, his hands on either side of her face, and knew what had just happened; somehow, the other Time Lord had managed to force her _back_ into her body...

"There you are," the Master said with a cold, mocking smile. Before Prue could regain enough focus to use her powers once again, the Master had grabbed her head and forced her into position over a brilliant beam of light that shone into her eye with such intensity that Prue's vision almost automatically shut down as she stared into it.

" _Yes_!" the Master yelled, throwing Prue aside as the sound of something large and heavy moving reached her ears, her vision momentarily lost to her as she tried to work out where her enemy was standing. "With the Eye open-!"

"You _can't_!" Prue yelled desperately, wishing she sounded less panicked than she did; she hated not being in control when the stakes were this high, but the loss of her vision wasn't something she could easily get past. "The Doctor has the TARDIS in temporal orbit; if you try anything _now_ you could-"

"Tear us apart?" the Master asked mockingly, his voice becoming slightly clearer as though he was now addressing her directly. "Naturally, Miss Halliwell; why _else_ would I be doing this?"

"But _you'll_ die-!" Prue began.

"I'm _already_ dead without the Doctor, Miss Halliwell; at least this way he'll go _with_ me," the Master spat back at her, before Prue suddenly felt two hands around her throat as the Master hauled her upwards and began to choke her. "And now... for _your_ role in pushing me to-"

"NO!" the Doctor's voice suddenly broke through the Master's rant, the grip around her neck suddenly vanishing as the sound of a fight reached her ears. As she struggled backwards to escape the fight, Prue's eyes began to re-adjust to the light that had temporarily blinded them, the blackness that had so terrified her earlier being replaced by the blurred sight of the Doctor and the Master struggling over the ever-opening Eye.

"You want dominion over the living..." the Doctor's voice yelled over the roar of 'wind'- or whatever it was- from the Eye, "yet all you do is _kill_!"

"Life is wasted on the living!" the Master countered, only for further exchange to be cut short when Phoebe grabbed him by the shoulder and practically hauled him off the other Time Lord, sending him staggering back towards the corner of the room.

"You know something, 'Master'?" Phoebe said as she glared at him, cold contempt in her eyes for the man who had so recently taken control of her. "You _really_ talk too much."

Hissing at Phoebe in an almost snake-like manner, the Master leapt towards Phoebe and the Doctor as the other Time Lord began to stagger to his feet. In desperation, Prue thrust one hand out in an attempt to deflect the Master's leap, knocking the psychotic Time Lord just far enough off-target to send him falling past the Doctor and Phoebe into the Eye. Grabbing onto one of the rods around the Eye, the Master was left hanging on for dear life as he looked at the group before him, the Doctor extending one arm towards his old friend.

"Give me your hand!" the Doctor called out urgently, ignoring the shocked stares he received from the Halliwells after he made that offer. Phoebe briefly opened her mouth to ask the Doctor why he would make such an offer, but quickly decided against it; this was the Doctor's foe, and it was his decision what would become of the Master in the end.

" _Never_!" the Master countered, his voice sounding increasingly distorted as he spoke, as though he was speaking through a layer of mucus.

For a moment, the two Time Lords could only stare at each other as the Master hovered over the Eye, the Halliwells around them uncertain what they should do next as their ally could do nothing but stare at his old friend, until the Master finally lost his grip and fell into the centre of the Eye.

"DOCTORRRrrr...!" he roared, his arms stretched out before him as though scrambling for purchase on something, before he seemed to collapse in front of them, his body breaking down into small particles that subsequently fell into the Eye.

For a moment, the group could only stare at the Eye as it continued to blare in front of them, the Doctor's expression suggesting at an ambiguity that the Halliwells couldn't penetrate, before he turned around and headed back towards the control room, leaving the Halliwells to exchange awkward glances before they hurried after him.

"Uh... what... _happened_ there?" Piper asked at last, uncertainly indicating the room they'd just left as they returned to the control console, Chang Lee standing awkwardly beside it as he looked at them; evidently he hadn't been certain what to do in the earlier situation so he'd simply done nothing.

"The Master fell into the Eye of Harmony," the Doctor said simply.

"Which means...?" Phoebe asked, waving a prompting hand at the Time Lord.

"Which means that, while his consciousness _may_ have survived the transition into the anti-matter universe that exists on the other side of the Eye, he's now trapped in that universe with no way out unless he and an equally strong-willed Time Lord can come to any sort of resolution, which I find unlikely given that neither of them would want to let the other one escape while they stayed trapped..." the Doctor replied, tapping a few controls on the console before he smiled and glanced back at the sisters. "Well, it worked; we're currently at December 29th."

"And... the future?" Piper asked apprehensively.

In response, the Doctor reached over and casually flicked a switch, bringing up the holographic display around the roof that they'd seen earlier. Unlike the image of destruction they'd seen earlier, this time the screen displayed a simple but beautiful scene of stars, planets and galaxies around them, a comet briefly blazing across the view as they watched it.

"Wow..." Lee whispered.

"Incredible..." Prue added.

"Quite," the Doctor said, extending an arm to point at a part of the display that showed a small planet that seemed to be surrounded by a white 'cloud' (Although the sisters acknowledged that it was probably an asteroid field or a nebula or something like that; stellar phenomenon weren't exactly their strong point). "Look over there, on the far side of your galaxy? That's home."

"Gallifrey?" Piper asked, looking at the sight with slightly widened eyes.

It might be distant- to say nothing of it being a slightly stupid thing to focus on-, but the thought that their new friend came from that _specific_ planet...

"Two hundred million light years away," the Doctor said, before he looked at the sisters with a casual smile. "That's a good ten minutes in this thing."

Glancing at the console before him, his smile broadened before he looked back at them. "Well, everything seems to be in order; would you like to get off here, or shall we get back to the present?"

"Present, definitely," Prue said with a resolute nod.

"Outside my club, if you could manage it," Piper added. "I'm already late for the New Year's party, and this _is_ only my first year running the place..."

"Of course," the Doctor said with a smile as he began to adjust the controls. "Just give me the location..."

* * *

"Whoa..." Lee said as he walked out of the TARDIS, briefly registering their changed location as he looked at the fireworks going off above them, the sounds of New Year's celebrations coming from the building just off to the side. "It's that simple?"  
  
"Well, piloting is a bit tricky sometimes- I've had to practically rebuild the console from scratch once or twice myself, and things _were_ a bit trickier when I started out-, but once you know what you're doing it's simple, really," the Doctor said, smiling as he and the Halliwells walked out of his ship, taking in the view before them with an approving smile. "Well, there you have it; everything's as it should be."  
  
"Uh..." Lee said slightly awkwardly, reaching into his pocket to pull out a paper bag that he passed to the Doctor. "Your things."  
  
Opening the bag, the Doctor smiled as he removed a thin silver rod from its contents.  
  
"My sonic screwdriver!" he said, grinning broadly as he looked up at Lee. "Thank you!"  
  
"And, uh, these two," Lee added, picking two small red velvet bags out of his pockets.  
  
"Please, keep them," the Doctor said dismissively as he continued to examine the bag, one hand rummaging through it as he held it close to his face.  
  
"Really?" Lee asked, looking at the Doctor in surprise.  
  
"Yes, really," the Doctor replied, looking back at Lee with a brief nod before resuming his examination.  
  
"I better go before you change your mind!" Lee said, exchanging broad smiles with the Time Lord and the Charmed Ones before he ran to the end of the alley.  
  
"Lee!" the Doctor suddenly added, prompting the young man to turn back and look at him. "Next Christmas, take a vacation; just _don't be here_."  
  
"Right..." Lee said uncertainly, before his eyes widened and he nodded in understanding. "Thanks... Thanks, Doctor."  
  
With that, he turned around and resumed his run back into the San Francisco streets, leaving the Halliwells with a brief wave before he vanished.  
  
"Interfering again?" Phoebe asked with a slight smile.  
  
"Always do what you do best," the Doctor said, before he looked at the three sisters. "On that topic-"  
  
"Don't tell us," Prue said, holding up a hand to stop the Doctor.  
  
"Really?" the Time Lord said.  
  
"We've got my visions; that's all the glimpses of the future we need right now," Phoebe said with a shrug.  
  
"Besides," Piper added, "I think after all this, we need to keep a few surprises."  
  
"Good," the Doctor said, nodding in approval at them with a slight smile on his face. "I'm glad."  
  
He paused for a moment, and then looked inquiringly at them. "Come with me."  
  
"What?" Piper asked.  
  
"Come with me," the Doctor repeated, looking between them with a prompting smile.  
  
"I..." Prue began, looking uncertainly at the Doctor for a moment, before she shook her head. "We can't. We have responsibilities here; we have _lives_ here..."  
  
"I can have you back before anyone knows you've gone-" the Doctor began.  
  
"Look, not that it's not tempting, but..." Piper said, looking apologetically at the Time Lord. "We just... well, we don't _belong_ in your world, Doctor. We deal with demons- even if they're... what you told us they are- with magic, you deal with aliens using your freaky acquired-over-centuries-and-lifetimes'-worth of science..."  
  
She shrugged apologetically. "It... well, we worked out OK today, but it just doesn't work on a long term, does it?"  
  
For a moment, the Doctor could only look reflectively back at her, before he nodded.  
  
"Fair point, well made," he said simply, as he glanced back at his ship with a slight sigh before turning back to them. "Well... it's been fun, but-"  
  
"Oh, no you don't," Prue said, reaching over to take the Doctor's arm with a polite but firm grip.  
  
"What?" the Doctor asked, looking at her in confusion.  
  
"We may not be _going_ anywhere with you, but you're _not_ just walking out on us after _this_ ," Prue said, looking pointedly at the Time Lord. "We just saved the entire world from being sucked into a black hole, and it's the biggest event of the century; you are _not_ leaving without sticking around for at least _one_ drink at our club. OK?"  
  
Looking between the Halliwell sisters, the Doctor sighed and shrugged.  
  
"Well," he said, a resigned tone to his voice that was belied by the smile on his face, "given that I'm currently only relaxing in Allen Road while also trying to get London back to normal and stop the Voracians taking control of Earth's machinery, I think it's safe to say that I currently owe myself a second relaxing January 1st 2000 to make up for the last two..."  
  
"Back up a minute; you're 'getting London back to normal' right now?" Phoebe interjected in confusion.  
  
"Oh, I'm just in the city two bodies ago working to sort out a unique little dimensional anomaly where an entity from the previous universe and an entity from the _next_ universe got stuck together; nobody outside myself and a few close friends will even remember it happened when I'm finished," the Doctor said reassuringly before another thought occurred to him. "Oh, and no worries about the Millennium Bug; I sorted that out fairly quickly-"  
  
"Well, you can tell us about _that_ later," Prue said, as she began to walk towards the club with the Doctor's arm still in her hand, a resolute expression on her face that made it clear that, as far as she was concerned, the topics the Doctor was currently discussing could be talked about later. "Right now, it's time to party _because_ it's no longer 1999."  
  
As the group walked out of the alley and into the club- the Halliwells were still dressed for the party they'd attended earlier, and even the Doctor's clothes, while strange, looked like they'd pass muster under casual examination-, Prue, Piper and Phoebe couldn't help but exchange approving smiles at each other.  
  
Not only had they just learned that aliens _were_ out there, but they'd actually helped a man who'd been visiting Earth- and protecting it fairly well, if what they'd read in the Book of Shadows was any indicating of what he'd faced in the past- for centuries to save it from a threat on a scale that they could never have imagined existed, to say nothing of making a _very_ interesting new friend...  
  
It might not last beyond this current meeting, but as Prue found herself spinning on the floor as the Doctor suddenly gave her a twirl across the dance floor, the time they had spent with the Doctor this year was definitely something that they would remember for a _very_ long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hope you enjoyed this; it was short, but I think it works.
> 
> If anyone's interested in seeing anything else in this universe as the Doctor and the Charmed Ones work together again, feel free to make a request and I'll see what I can do (Preferably something featuring the Doctor getting involved in one of the Charmed Ones' adventures involving time-travel or reality manipulation)
> 
> For those wanting to know, the Doctor's previous Millennium encounters took place in the short story "That Time I Nearly Destroyed The World While Looking for a Dress" (The Second Doctor, Ben, Polly and Jamie), and the novels "Millennium Shock" (The Fourth Doctor and Harry Sullivan, dealing with the Voracians) and "Millennial Rites" (The Sixth Doctor and Mel dealing with beings from the previous universe and the next universe)

**Author's Note:**

> For those who haven't seen the TV movie, the man at the end is the newly-regenerated Eighth Doctor; due to the surgeons' inexperience with Gallifreyian physiology, they caused damage to his heart while examining his internal organs with a probe to figure out what went wrong, but the anaesthetic they had him under almost destroyed the regenerative process and he was left unconscious for several hours after his 'death', the regeneration only completing itself in the morgue- the Doctor having been booked for an autopsy the next morning- and leaving the Eighth Doctor with total amnesia.
> 
> The "Charmed" elements of the plot begin next chapter, I assure you; I just thought it best to establish the current situation from the Doctor's perspective rather than beginning looking at things from the Charmed Ones point of view


End file.
